The Original Stories
by Arceus Arcanus
Summary: Open the cover, read deep and well, and enjoy these tales, young one, but be mindful, for the forgetting of them may lead to consequences even the legendaries fear... Chapter 21: The Thing That Walks.
1. Chapter 1

The Original Story

At the beginning of time, when the Universe was merely a swirling ball of chaos, there was everything and there was nothing. The Void that was all existence was the gleam in a Rattata's eye and the enormous, burning sun; it was everywhere and nowhere, a confused, dancing whirlpool of colours and colourlessness, of ideas yet to be born, of people and Pokémon yet to live.

At the centre of the Void, shining with the light of a thousand stars, the pure white of snow and the rich gold of precious treasure, appeared an Egg. It shook, and shattered into infinite pieces, and there was revealed the First, the best of all; Arceus.

To the eye She seemed an unlikely candidate for the ruler of all the world, lacking the stature of those more notorious in the human world, such as the mighty, earth-shaking Groudon and the speeding, sky-shrieking Rayquaza. However, She had been born fully formed, with the knowledge of every civilisation that would wage its petty wars across the lands, every nation that would rise and fall, every despotic or good ruler that would raise themselves above the people and do good or evil.

And She knew what She must do.

Raising Her slender, elegant head towards the heavens, She gave a great wordless cry. From Her body two spheres appeared, one a cool ocean-blue, the other the soft pink of clouds at sunset. Slowly, the two beings uncurled, revealing themselves as enormous beasts, fanged, clawed and powerful. First, the strong Daughter of Time, Dialga, who could force human or Pokémon to age a hundred years in the blink of an eyelid, or grant them eternal life according to her whims; second, the gigantic Palkia, manipulator of space, warping and twisting the world as he pleased.

The two mammoth Pokémon bowed their heads and murmured respectfully; Greetings, Mother.

Greetings, my children, replied She. However, our work is not yet complete.

She closed Her calm red eyes and gave a soft smile, the first that had ever been seen. Gently, a ball of light floated from her body and split into three. Two resembled the first children that had been born from her, but without the currents of rage that threaded through those eggs, while the other was a calm yellow, like a Sunflora's petals. Rising lethargically from their sleep, the three new Pokémon appeared, of lesser size than the titans before them, but no less important. Uxie, ruler and custodian of all knowledge, Mesprit, giver of joy and despair, and Azelf, who lends bravery to people and Pokémon in times of need.

Smiling with the birth of the second children, Arceus spoke once more; Now, we shall begin the creation of the world.

Closing their eyes, Dialga and Palkia called to their power deep within, and made a simple wish. Audibly, the second children gasped as they felt the chaos around them resolve into atoms, order asserting itself down to the tiniest of details. They wished as their siblings had done, and the first children wept as they felt spirit flow through their bodies for the first time.

However, Arceus and Her children could not yet rest, for they had to begin the universe. She shot into the confusion of darkness above them, and came down hard on the fragments of Her egg. Each glittering fragment shot away into the dark, incandescent with the heat of their travel, and lay, an ocean of scattered diamonds, across the blackness. In years to come humans would stare at these shards, some dismissing and some worshipping them, and name them stars. Across the newly jewelled void She set comets to fly and dazzle and clouds of rock and dust to shade the brightness of the more powerful stars.

Next came a far more delicate task; the creation of worlds. To begin, She called to her all the small particles of iron drifting aimlessly in space, and pulled them together into two enormous spheres of solid metal, gleaming in the faint starlight. After this, She commanded yet more tiny flecks to come to Her, and, melting them with a powerful shot of energy from Her jaws, spread the molten iron over both spheres, then, finally, wrapped each in a crust of rock and fertile soil.

She then knew that they would require greater power for the next chance, and again the globules of power fled from her body, one again a soft pink, the other green and speckled with yellow. Both unfurled, and, sleepily blinking, the two tiny beings glanced around them, and joyfully leapt on their Mother's back, squeaking greetings. Arceus turned to her children, presenting to them Mew, creator of life, and Shaymin, for whom plants flowered wherever he stepped.

Without saying a single word, Shaymin flicked his small head, and a multitude of green flowed across the two worlds' surfaces, bursting into extraordinary colours here and there. Mew jumped, and flew in a trail of glittering particles across the two worlds. Wherever each tiny spark lay to rest, a new being sprung from the soil, or air, or plants, and slumbered on the ground, ready for when She would awaken them.

Weeping at the wonder of this new sight, the first children wanted to do nothing more than to explore the two bright, new worlds, but She stopped them, telling them in Her gentle voice that they had many more tasks yet to perform.

Laws are necessary, and must be there from the very beginning, governing lives and thought and action, otherwise what are we if not beasts? Every aspect of the world, however small or insignificant, had its allotted guardian, defender and ruler. To join them in the forming of the world came the strange, eye-patterned Regigigas, with strength surpassing even that of the first children, brought into existence to serve, protect, and to drag the heavy continents into their rightful places. From the molten fastnesses of a volcano where a spark of Mew's gift had landed, crawled the mighty Heatran, a powerful warrior whose fiery flowers would leave many a mark in the coming years. After her came a gentler creature, the blesser of dreams and giver of sweet thoughts, Cresselia Moon-Queen. To spread water across the globe came the great Kyogre, in the form of a giant Wailord, yet possessing more power than the biggest of that species could ever dream of holding, having the gift to control the oceans. Yet Arceus feared that if the ocean goddess were allowed to exercise her powers fully, the world would be submerged beneath Kyogre's domain. Therefore, she created a counterpart for the furious water goddess, in the likeness of a red behemoth with mastery of the earth, its dry, cracked surface and currents of molten rock glowing bright like candles, craving heat where his counterpart desired cold and damp. Furthermore, to ensure the balance between these two would always be maintained, she created a being like a giant dragon, green as emeralds and patterned with gold, which remained in the sky, ever watchful, guarding against the possibility of a war between sea and earth. Elemental masters, the ice-hearted Articuno, the lightning-quick Zapdos and the fiery Moltres, were created to assist the titans of earth, sea and sky in their work of controlling the weather. But Arceus feared the rash, impulsive legendaries would use their gifts against mortals, and so also brought into being their masters, the mighty Ho-oh, which flies through the air and leaves arches drawn in bright colours soaring across the sky, and the calm Lugia, dwelling in the depths of the ocean, deeper than all Pokémon go save for the cavern where Kyogre sleeps.

Others would come later, but these were the first, the purest children of Arceus' heart. All bowed before their great Creator, ready to obey Her every order.

Flapping his great fiery wings, Ho-oh remarked "Truly, Powerful One, this is a perfect universe!"

But the great goddess bowed Her head sadly, and told her child; "No, for though we are good, there must be balance, otherwise the universe can never truly be peaceful."

The masters of Time and Space screamed aloud as they felt something new, something that should not be, an abomination, polluting the perfect universe which they had thought themselves total rulers of, twisting and perverting the rules which they depended on, yet something so extraordinarily _like _them. A being, red-lit eyes casting scornful glances at the assembled deities, rose from the shadows, and smiled, revealing a maw ringed with yellowed fangs.

From beside it, a pool of darkness flowed out, and began to bubble and writhe, forming itself into a bizarre new creature. Ethereal though this new being was, the legendaries could clearly feel the malevolence flowing from it. A column of whitish smoke rose from its jagged, blood-red neck, and from its insubstantial depths, an ice-blue eye shone, striking a sharp dart of fear into all those assembled.

Cackling, these new monsters began to circle their counterparts, tormenting them with cruel words and spears of dark energy, but the Creator formed a ball of unbearably bright light and tossed it at them, flinging them away to the darkest corners of the universe. She then turned to face her creation, and told them "These beings cannot be destroyed, for to do so would upset the equilibrium of this beautiful new world. However, they can always be defeated, or banished. This, my children, will be your greatest trial. Remember, however, without the darkness the light would be nothing."


	2. Chapter 2

The Coming of Jirachi and Celebi

After the creation of the universe was concluded, the Original One hid Herself away in the Hall of Origin. Before slipping into her unyielding slumber, she appointed Uxie, the wisest of them all, as leader in her absence. "Use your wisdom, your greatest gift, to solve the problems of this new world. Though everything seems perfect, later there will be wars, greed, hate and envy. Pokémon will war with Pokémon, and the humans shall likewise destroy each other. At times, humans and Pokémon shall even face each other on the battlefield. Have courage, and there may finally come a time when the two worlds are at peace." So saying, She closed Her eyes, and slipped into dreamless sleep, the golden stairs that led to the Hall of Origin fading into the mist.

Uxie took command, sending each legendary to their allotted place: Kyogre to the depths of the deepest seas, Articuno to the heights of the frozen mountains in the far north, Shaymin to a field blooming with the most colourful and wondrously scented flowers. She herself flew to one of the three sacred lakes of what would one day be called Sinnoh, and sat in judgement there, intending to mediate whatever petty disputes human and Pokémon would exchange harsh words or blows over.

At first, her task was an easy one; few were willing to journey into the cold north of the region, where the weather and Pokémon were equally eager to take lives, and their desires were usually virtuous, often requiring little more than a potion to treat a sickening child or a supply of food to see a small family of Snorunt through the winter. However, as the fame of her miracles spread, Uxie found herself increasingly besieged by those requesting wishes, not all of which were asked with intentions as pure as those first few pioneers. Now, most of her supplicants seemed to lust after the sheen of gold, or the glimmering of gems, or the strength of a sword with which they could cut down the innocent Pokémon near their homes for trophies. Growing tired and disgusted with the greed of her worshippers, the Guardian of Wisdom finally cried "I came to provide you with everything you needed, but I have become little more than a source of money. Since you are incapable of anything but demanding material wealth, I shall no longer grant your wishes. From today, another deity shall hear your desires." So saying, she flew towards the heights of Mount Coronet, whilst the dismayed people and Pokémon stared at the glowing trail she left.

Placing one paw on the resting place of the Original One, the Goddess of Knowledge concentrated her power, sending a sphere of energy into the heart of the vault, gently probing, requesting power, and felt an intense surge in return, flowing into her slender form and binding creation to control. Uxie shaped and manipulated the waterfall of gold into a small outline on the floor, first moulding a body the colour of pure, unblemished snow, then sweeping three black lines across its face and torso for the three closed eyes, then crowning its head with a star. Her task completed, the Custodian of Omniscience removed her limb from the vault and spoke. "Awake, Jirachi, Star-Headed One, Granter Of Wishes, Protector Of Children. Know that I have called you into being to assist in the fulfilment of the desires of both humans and Pokémon. Sit in judgement, hear their requests, and decide whether or not to bestow the gift of your wishes upon them." She then took three strips of blue _washi _and attached each to one point of the star. "When you believe you have found a wisher true in desire, simply have them write it on one of these tags. The power of Her, the Creator, resides in you and will ensure it is carried out."

Jirachi bowed. "Mistress, I hear and obey."

The Star-Headed One promptly took Uxie's place as intermediary between mortals and gods. However, being young and inexperienced, he could as easily be influenced by the cunning words of a rich man craving more gold as a beggar-child pleading for food. The miraculous tags, which could never be filled no matter how many wishes were written on them, were soon lined with base desires, in calligraphy scribbled and unwieldy with the haste the supplicants were unable to restrain under the influence of their selfish wants. Before long, word of Jirachi's errors reached the Guardian of Wisdom, who, after viewing his judgements herself and meditating upon the matter for some time, decided not to punish the young legendary, but to instead place him in the deepest of slumbers, only awaking once every thousand years for a mere seven days. Furthermore, she wove into the magic of the crystal the Protector of Children was concealed in the condition that it would not open unless spoken to in a pure voice. Willingly, Jirachi slept, unhurriedly anticipating a time when it would wake and give wishes to the people once more.

Although Jirachi's sleep merely held off the greed of avaricious Pokémon and people, peace was maintained for many years. However, several centuries later, the Custodian of Omniscience found herself approached by a small family of Pokémon, a mother Nuzleaf, father Shiftry, and a litter of young Seedot, begging for succour. When she asked the source of the tears that flowed from their eyes, the Shiftry told her of the previously peaceful conditions in which they lived, which had been disrupted by the machinations of a small village of humans, who thoughtlessly sliced down trees to burn on fires or to build their houses. The Pokémon begged for the humans to be struck down. Furious at these Pokémon who would contemplate killing in the name of loss of territory, the Guardian of Knowledge left in disgust, ignoring their calls.

When she later, in the guise of a Weedle, crept onto the moss-covered bark of a tree to observe the humans at work, the Custodian's heart beat faster with anger. Caring little for the small bugs and dozing birds that scrambled out of the way, they swung their gleaming axes at ancient trees, ignoring the nests balanced along their branches, the Pokémon they sheltered, and the food they had provided for decades. Restraining herself, with the greatest of difficulty, from tearing the eyes from their sockets with her power, she silently crawled after them, following them as they carelessly slung the tree between them and strode along the rough track to the village.

This time taking the form of a child of the village, the Goddess of Wisdom hid behind one of the crudely built houses, peering from the shadow at the expanse of churned mud in the centre that served for a square. The cut trees were laid near the edge, and several of the woodcutters sat beside them, stripping them of branches, as one pulled aside the curtain covering the door of a hut, stepped in, and came out carrying a dark bundle, resembling piled clothes or a sack of vegetables. He laid down the bundle close to a space grey with scattered ashes, and, as it was placed on the ground, it groaned and turned over, revealing the flushed, sweating face of a village child, three or four years of age, clearly suffering grievously from a fever. As Uxie watched, several of the branches taken from the trees were piled in the centre of the square, and set alight. One of the men from the expedition removed a small bunch of herbs and placed them near the heart of the fire, charring and blackening them, then crushed them and stirred them into a beaker of cool water. Once several sips had been forced down the child's throat, some of the heat left its face, and it fell into a deep, unbroken sleep, breathing calm and regular.

Both sides had lived in the forest for several hundreds of years, the settlement having begun as a few tents round a campfire, a heartbeat after the creation of the universe was complete, whilst the first Pidgey took leaves and branches and wove them into nests. Their interests were opposite, their claims equal, resembling the eternal fight of Zekrom and Reshiram in the heavens. Just as the two opposite-yet-equal siblings were balanced in power, intelligence and worshippers, the Goddess of Knowledge balanced the needs of the two opposite-yet-equal civilisations with the creation of Celebi, Rider of the Time Stream, Master of the Forest, Protector of Nature. Green, with glimmering wings and glowing blue eyes, he bowed to Uxie and sped away to complete his task.

When the woodcutters rose the next morning, they found that not only the trees they had cut down the day before had grown once more, perfectly formed, but that every tree that had been taken through the work of human or Pokémon had been replaced, healthy and strong. Each nest that had lain broken on the ground the night before was filled with now-waking infant Pokémon, who raised beaks and mouths to their parents, hungry for the food they had brought home. Moved by the sight, each bowed and gave thanks to the unknown legendary which had given them this gift.

The elder of the village immediately gave orders that a shrine should be built near the spot where the trees had been found miraculously growing, in order to express their gratitude for the gift. The villagers often left food, carvings, or jewellery on it, but the shrine would also, in time, be covered with the fresh berries and herbs offered by the Pokémon who would now never want for a home. To this day, the trees of the wood are cut down, for charcoal or building materials, but the next morning they will always be found growing once more.


	3. Shaymin & The Miraculous Tree

Shaymin and the Miraculous Tree

After the creation of the two worlds was complete, with each Pokémon from the tiniest Weedle to the heaviest Snorlax in its place, the Original One fell back into her deep sleep, ready for the next great task. However, the human race was not yet content.

Sometimes, human and Pokémon co-operated, working together or trading with one another. Pokémon would often assist the humans in return for a reward of food; however, they existed independently, and still regarded each other with suspicion. Very few chose to bridge the immense, harsh, unspoken gap, or to risk hostile glares and whispers from their own kin.

However, there were many worse instances. Pokémon were still a wild species, and for every one willing to work with the humans there were five who had not yet forgotten their rough, flinty hearts and the lust for the salty wine in human veins. These ignored the message of Her and the other legendary Pokémon, breaking the peace with assaults on human settlements. Often the villages would be razed to the ground by the vicious foes. They tore down houses with a mere claw, stole the harvest from the fields, poisoned the wells and plunged the humans into deepest terror. Night and day they huddled in corners, children whimpering softly, listening to the wild shrieks and calls outside, longing for the silence of the days before the invaders, and praying to the legendaries that the nightmare would end.

Ho-oh looked down on the plight of these humans, and his fiery heart was stirred with pity. Dipping a great rainbow wing, he glided along a powerful air current to the home of Uxie, guardian of knowledge.

Bowing his enormous head before the small being, he described the humans' terror and humbly requested her help. Wise Uxie considered for a short while, then floated from the dark cavern and towards the place that Ho-oh had visited.

Cunningly taking the shape of a blind beggar, she leaned against one of the few remaining huts. She put the idea into the head of one of the village elders to pray to the legendary Shaymin, who was known for his benevolence towards the human race. The villagers heartily agreed, and that very night conducted the ritual to summon the Lord of the Flower Paradise. Flowers, the forlorn few that had escaped the invaders' cruelty, were laid on the small, worn stone shrine in the village square, and each and every villager bowed their head and repeated the plea: "Please, Great Lord Shaymin, show your kindness to our innocent people and send us a gift with which to banish these evil Pokémon, against whom we have never so much as raised a fist."

A thousand miles away, sleeping amidst the bright blossoms of the Flower Paradise, Shaymin awoke. Beside him he found Uxie, who quietly instructed him as to what he must do. He listened, then launched himself into the cool, star-studded night sky.

That night, many a villager would detect the scent of fresh flowers on the breeze, and see tiny daisies sprout from nothing in the dry soil. But despite a torchlit search of every inch of the village, no trace of the god they had prayed to could be seen. Sorely disappointed, the humans returned to their sleep.

In the centre of the village, something had begun to sprout.

The following morning, shouts echoed through the air. Before the altar of Shaymin stood a small tree, the like of which had never been seen before. Its appearance was much the same as any other plant, having deep green leaves and a stem clad in rough bark. However, its fruit were strange to the villagers' eyes. They were a riot of extraordinary colours, and unlike usual fruit, resembled small acorn containers, with tiny brown lids and hard flesh.

The village elders puzzled over this strange tree. Undoubtedly it was the gift of Lord Shaymin, but how could these strange fruits be of any help? Already the villagers had experimented with them, and had found that inside the hard shell was a hollow full of a mildly sweet substance, but could see little else of worth. Still deep in thought, they dispersed and went back to their everyday tasks.

In time, the villagers began to forget the tree. Beating back the invaders kept the adults busy, and the children amused themselves with the fruits of the tree, making from them balls, dolls and other toys, having little else to play with.

One day, a young boy in the village woke early, and, looking left and right for other people, ran quickly into the dark forest that surrounded it. Swift as the wind, he arrived in a clearing littered with pine needles, and removing a large log from its place, revealed a sleeping Wurmple, which sprang to life as soon as it saw him.

Kneeling down, the boy took from his pocket his treasure, a fruit from the strange tree. He had spent many nights working on it, a plaything for himself and Wurmple. The sweet substance inside had been removed, and, when he twisted the top clockwise, it fell open, revealing a child's treasures: berries, pebbles, a small coin he had found once while fishing. Excited, the Wurmple leapt up and down, joyed at the opportunity to play with its friend.

The two took up positions at each end of the clearing. The boy threw the fruit, but as it arced through the pool of sunlight in the centre, he saw the light glinting on his treasures as they spilled from the box. Distressed, the Wurmple slid forth unthinking, and as it did so, the two halves of the fruit struck it, and it vanished.

The boy cried out in fear, and ran to where his playmate had vanished. Carefully, he removed the fruit from the ground, and twisted the top as he had done so many times. In a blinding flash of light, the Wurmple appeared once more, and leapt into its friend's arms.

Together, the friends experimented, and soon found that by opening the fruit or by touching it lightly to Wurmple's head, it could escape and return at will. Excited, he ran home to show his mother, the miraculous fruit safely tucked away in his pocket.

Upon seeing the small worm appear and disappear at the opening and closing of the magical fruit, the villagers knew instantly that this was the true purpose of the gift and that it would solve their problems. They hollowed out all the fruit they could lay their hands on, and faithfully turned them into copies of the child's toy. Day and night they worked, and barely heard the screams and yells of the invaders as they echoed through the dark.

Finally, the invaders once more grew tired of merely stealing food and destroying crops, and turned their wrath on the human villagers. Their eyes glowed in a wealth of unholy shades as they tore towards the people. However, as they sliced through the air like paper, they noticed a determination in the humans' eyes they had never seen before. Surprised, they halted, but the miraculous fruit were already flying through the air, and as they struck home the invaders looked at the villagers with fear as they were sucked in and disappeared.

The town went on to prosper, their crops growing rich and tall. Houses and wells were rebuilt, and many Pokémon came, seeking a closer friendship with humans than they had known before. Especially attracted were the flyers, crawlers and creepers, observing the bond between the innocent boy and his Wurmple which had brought so much happiness to others. The town would continue to advance, with the building of temples, markets and a battle arena, but they would never forget the small child's mistake.


	4. The Tale of The Sea Prince

The Tale of the Sea Prince

Many aeons ago, there once lived a kingdom by a sapphire sea. Its cities were expansive and beautiful, built from the purest white marble and adorned with coral. Its rulers were wise and good, and the kind people lived in happiness for a long while until a Prince was born to the noble Queen.

At the Prince's birth, a Xatu prophesied that if the Prince should ever love, he should lose the extraordinary power the legendaries had blessed him with. For the young Prince, from the very instant of his birth, had the knowledge of others' hearts, and could slip into another's body as easily as removing a tunic. She also warned of the terrible punishment that they would inflict for such a heresy. His parents therefore resolved to keep him hidden away in the palace, with no contact with anyone save themselves, in order to protect him from this terrible doom.

The Prince grew and prospered, with a kind and friendly nature. All his lessons were taught to him by his parents alone, and he was occupied with many exotic Pokémon, toys and books. But for all the splendour of his surroundings, the Prince was not yet content. He longed for the ocean, which he could not see but for a small high window, but inhaled its deep scent and heard its beauty described. Rippling white waves entered his dreams each night, and his thoughts were borne away on the clear water.

One night, when the full moon hung in the sky, the Prince glanced out of the window at the palely lit sea, he noticed a slender figure, dark against the tide. Fruitlessly, he rattled the bars of his cage, but could not escape. Nonetheless, he was intrigued by the figure, having seen no other humans save for his parents, and determined to somehow escape.

With the aid of his loyal Pokémon, by tooth and claw he slowly carved his way through the thick iron bars, being careful to work only at night when the Palace fell silent. As he strived away he saw the slim shape silhouetted against the silver-lit waves, and hoped.

Finally, many months after he had first seen the figure, the last bar fell to the cool stone floor. Standing on the shoulders of his faithful Machoke, the Prince lifted himself through the small space and descended the marble tower on a rope made from his bedsheets. As his boots touched the damp sand, he noted that the figure was a young and elegant woman, with eyes the blue of the deepest oceans, robed in a simple white cloak. He paced across the sand and took her in his arms, and at last dared to hope for something beyond the confines of his chamber.

They spent that night together, neither dreaming of the consequences. As the first glimmer of gold on the waves began to appear, the Queen looked out from her window and saw her son lying in the sand, embracing an unknown girl. She gasped out loud and her delicate hands gripped the ledge tighter.

As the Xatu had prophesied at the Prince's birth, there would be a reckoning for his sinful actions. The legendaries, seeing the lovers stand before them at the Court of the Gods, were inclined to be merciful, but still had to obey the laws of the world. Therefore, they elected to bestow upon the Prince and the girl a powerful curse. For following his own will, the Prince's offspring would be cursed to spend their entire lives drifting, carried this way and that by the whims of the ocean currents. They could love, like their parents, but only when the sea brought them together in the early spring to breed, leave ocean-coloured eggs lying amongst the seaweed, and to drift far apart again.

Sharing one last embrace, the Prince and his companion accepted the judgement of the legendaries, and stepped into the water, never to be seen again.

**Contrary to popular belief, the small "review this chapter" link will not release a swarm of angry crocodiles over your head when clicked. The only thing it will release are feelings of happiness and joy in the author. The first person to review can request a chapter on any subject they want- the origins of Reshiram and Zekrom, how the Pok****é****thlon came to be… the list goes on and on. I'm that desperate. Have a nice day. - Arcanus**


	5. The Struggle of the Three

The Struggle of the Three

At the beginning of the universe, the three masters of the elements, Zapdos, Moltres and Articuno, using their control of quick-striking thunderbolts, searing flames, and glittering ice, worked to maintain the cycle of seasons the denizens of their world relied on to survive. Moltres heralded the arrival of spring with a wash of warmth from his fiery wings, Zapdos broke the stifling heat of summer with her furious storms, and Articuno flew through the skies and brought flakes of snow fluttering down upon the frost-hardened earth. Yet eventually they grew tired of their duties, and began to mete out random cruelties against the humans and Pokémon to relieve their boredom. One cold autumn, as the freezing air seeping from Articuno's body had begun to chill the nights, the three sat arguing on the top of Mt Silver, discussing which of them was the most powerful.

Articuno gestured to the thick snow lying around on the mountaintop, and claimed he was clearly the strongest, for he brought cold and snow capable of both giving joy and taking lives. Moltres laughed harshly, flecks of ash fluttering from his beak, and melted the snow with a jet of fire. Since his flames could so easily destroy the cold Articuno had proclaimed so deadly, he was evidently the most powerful of them all, he cried. The impetuous Zapdos leapt between them and shot a bolt of lightning towards the sky, daring them to display such power as her, she who could strike down the strongest human or Pokémon with a single electric arrow and wash away entire mountains of earth with the floods that followed her storms. Silence fell on the mountain, as lightning crackled on the horizon and rain poured down around the three warring legendaries.

In order to decide the best among them, the one worthy of ruling over the other two, the three arranged a contest. The one which could best display their powers in their respective seasons, thus proving their dominance over the citizens of their world, would be declared king or queen of the Elemental Triad and never have their might questioned again. The two which failed would be forced to submit to the other, and forever remain as servants to the victor. All three, by now furious with their siblings, turned their backs on one another and flew into the night.

First came Articuno's turn to prove himself, as the nights grew shorter and winter set in over Kanto. Still seething from the remarks his brother Moltres had made, he called up a blizzard the like of which had never been seen before or since. It swept through the region, silent and murderous, whipping up entire settlements that stood in its path without a sound. Many of those who miraculously avoided the icy death it brought later fell victim to the weeks of cold that followed.

The winter of the year of competition became known as The Winter of Abandoned Souls. Stealing to survive was as commonplace as breathing, and even murder for food no longer shocked the citizens of Kanto. Stories swept through the region like the chill breezes from Articuno's wings, whispering of families whose children vanished immediately before they obtained large quantities of fresh meat and those who left the weak in the snow to starve rather than waste their limited rations on them. Articuno received all these tales with his usual frosty calm, whilst his tempestuous siblings looked on, anger burning in their eyes and crackling in their hearts.

Next came Moltres' season. At first, the people and Pokémon of Kanto rejoiced, as the cold weather that had terrorised them for so long vanished, abruptly replaced by heat and bright sunshine. Even whilst Kanto was ravaged by famine, the shrines to The Herald of Spring were always piled with offerings from the thankful. Those humans that remained set about planting new crops to fill their depleted stores, and the handful of leftover livestock were let out to pasture, whilst the Pokémon of the forest found berries growing as the frost melted and became water and the Pokémon of the mountain woke up in the caves they hibernated in and found the thick layers of snow outside beginning to clear. Happiness had been restored, and Moltres beat his flaming wings and gave a cry of victory whilst his brother and sister looked on with jealousy.

Several months later, after Kanto had enjoyed a spring hotter and drier than any most could remember, Moltres flew down from his roost on Mt Silver to observe the rebuilding of the nation. First, he determined to visit the fields in the warm south of the region, and glided along lazily, sun beating down upon his back. As he flew, he noted the villages that were being rebuilt across Kanto, and smiled, assured of victory. For if his brother had power only to destroy a nation, surely he had surpassed him by building one anew?

Eventually, the glittering sea was visible on the horizon, and the embodiment of fire spiralled slowly down towards the simple dwellings of the farmers. Landing, he glanced about him, but his eyes were greeted with nothing more than bare earth. A few dried, useless plant stems lay scattered across the baked ground.

Furious, the deity entered one of the huts and demanded to know why no crops had been planted. The peasants cringed, and begged his forgiveness, for indeed, as he had instructed, they had filled the fields with the seeds they had stored from previous years, but, in the intense heat of the spring, water had been scarce, with barely enough to supply themselves and their livestock, let alone feed their crops. One gestured over to the next field, where a dozen Tauros lay, some panting in the heat, and some not moving, and asked if these, if anything, were not grounds for the legendary to spare them.

Shamed, Moltres left the dwelling and soared once more into the blue sky to investigate the farmlands spreading across southern Kanto. Everywhere his talons touched earth he found the same pitiful tableau of dying crops, dying Pokémon, and dying people. An old man, rapidly sickening from drinking water contaminated by human dung, unafraid of the legendary's wrath and with a wry smile on his face, noted the irony of surviving the bitter cold and then being killed by the very warmth that had saved him. He gave a harsh, shuddering laugh, and several red droplets flew from his throat to the earthen floor.

He was greeted with triumphant smiles when he returned to the mountain. A mocking look was already in his icy brother's eyes, but it was Zapdos who looked truly victorious, letting loose small sparks from her golden wings and cawing happily. It was a pity for him, she informed her flame-crested sibling, that she, the one trio member who had the capacity to rectify his mistakes, had her turn immediately after his havoc had been wreaked. Her storms brought with them rain- endless rain, enough to soak the hardened ground, to provide water to all those dying of thirst, to solve every problem her foolish siblings had created. So saying, with a sneer she glided off the mountain and rose into the sky until her form was obscured by the burning light of the sun.

High above the parched earth, the embodiment of lightning called upon the power within her, and flapped her wings. Slowly, the sun was concealed behind clouds as dark and menacing as a Honchkrow, and the mortals below looked up to hear the rumble of thunder echo throughout the region. A few ragged cheers rose up, and turned into a Kanto-wide cry of pure joy as water began to come sheeting down, immediately absorbed by the starving ground and refilling the rainwater urns that had been empty for so long.

The offerings rotted on the shrines of Articuno and Moltres, whilst the best produce of the now-fertile fields was given over exclusively to the Thunder Goddess. Every meal began with a thankful prayer to the one that had made it possible. When any mortal, human or Pokémon, needed water, they simply had to send a flying emissary to Zapdos with the location of the desired rainfall. Happiness grew faster than the rejuvenated crops, and Kanto had begun to be restored to its former glory. Even the manifestations of fire and ice were forced to admit that Zapdos' ability might be greater than theirs, and a triumphant arc of thunder decorated the stars each night.

In the final month of summer, a Pidgey flew to Zapdos with a request from the citizens of the Viridian Forest. A simple task, the goddess replied, granting their wish, and lazily circled the peak of the mountain as the small bird made a hasty bow and sped back towards the woods from which it had come. As dusk spread over the region, she launched herself from the mountain towards the mass of green on the horizon.

Arriving, she found the leaves around her drying, turning brittle and brown. Since the end of her season was fast approaching, she thought it best that she display her gifts in full. Soaring above the treetops, she called into existence the mightiest storm yet seen. Bolts thicker than the trunks of the oaks surrounding her stabbed down from the sky, as their light was dimmed by a veil of rushing water. Satisfied, the Storm-Bringer glanced one final time at her handiwork, and flew upwards into the heart of the thundercloud, curtains of black parting to allow her through. The rain that night would be spoken of with reverence for years afterwards.

However, even the water that poured down on the forest, surpassed in quantity only by the rainstorm constantly surrounding Kyogre, was no match for the tragedy that would befall its denizens later that night. One stray thunderbolt touched the forest's tallest tree, turning it instantly to a blackened pillar, wrapped about with scarves of flame. Licking hungrily at the wood, the fire spread quickly, boiling sap and blood alike, devouring plant and Pokémon with equal vigour. It took many brave Wartortle, stationed at the edge of the town just beyond the forest, to prevent it from consuming the western half of the region. After the blaze had been quenched, several river Pokémon ventured in to search for survivors. Very few were found.

By now, Ho-oh in his roost above the clouds and Lugia in her underwater cavern had heard tales of the destruction their servants had wreaked across the region they had especially instructed them to care for. Reluctantly, putting aside their aeon-long rivalry, they met in the skies above Ecruteak to discuss what had to be done.

The fiery Guardian of the Rainbow flapped his immense wings and called for harsh punishment for the trio, as death could be the only possible way of atoning for the thousands of lives extinguished by their contest. The cool-hearted Trawler of the Depths refuted his statement and demanded that their protégés be merely chastised, at the worst forbidden from taking part in the Legendaries' Council. Eventually, with great difficulty, both admitted themselves to be in error, and decided upon the punishment they were to be given.

They came in the night, as the three sat arguing over which of them had emerged victorious. Articuno was plunged, screaming, into the heart of the volcano far south of where the flames had burnt the previous night, the only place which had remained clear during the Winter of Abandoned Souls. Lugia took Moltres and dived far below the surface of the sea, choking the air from his body, quenching his flaming crest, and subjecting him to a cold terror which he had never known before. Zapdos was pinned beneath a great rock which had taken an army of Machamp to lift, kept from the sky that was the source of all her power.

Lugia and Ho-oh set guards to keep the triad imprisoned for three days and three nights, no matter how much they begged, wheedled, or threatened, and began a tour of the two connected regions. On the fourth day they returned, and delivered to the legendaries the news of their punishment. They would be imprisoned, forever bound to one place, until a human could tame them and place them in their service to work off their debt. If the human chose to release them, that was their own affair; they would be free. But, if the human were forced into releasing them, or killed, the consequences would be severe.

The triad heard the judgement of their masters, and nodded, willing to make any sacrifice to end the agony. Their prisons had been carefully selected by Lugia and Ho-oh on their journey to provide a test for any human seeking to tame one of the three and to deter the weaker adventurers that might die in the attempt. Articuno was placed at the centre of an icy maze, Moltres in the deepest pit of a mountain, and Zapdos in a location down a treacherous river far from any settlements. All were surrounded by guards, who faithfully protected the prisons for the duration of their lives, and, when they grew old and weak, passed their roles onto their offspring, who guarded diligently in their turn. To this day, scholars have speculated on the various places where the three may be trapped, and exploration of the three locations most likely to hold the Masters of the Seasons have found only that they are surrounded by numerous strong Pokémon, who battle with greater ferocity than any other, and that no-one has yet been powerful enough to pass through.

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**Sorry that this is a bit late, but what with Christmas, soaking my homework in tea so it looks older and my Internet committing suicide, getting this finished has been a tad tricky. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this, especially the one who requested it, the first and (so far) only reviewer. The next chapter should hopefully be quicker. –Arcanus**


	6. The Birth of the Golems

The Birth of the Golems

In the beginning of the world, Uxie had gifted each human and Pokémon with their measure of wisdom. Some were given less of the magical elixir which we humans call wisdom, some more, but each had it to some degree. However, despite this, humans and Pokémon sometimes failed to make use of the Knowledgeable One's present, and that was how the troubles began.

Uxie, like all her legendary counterparts, loved all the cities of men, but favoured a choice few above the rest. Ecruteak, steeped in history and arched over by rainbows. Canalave, by the isles of dreams and nightmares. And Snowpoint, solitary and deep in snow, by the crystal lake where she spent her days.

One of the Pokémon receiving the least wisdom was the titanic Regigigas. He had used Uxie's gift little, being required only to transport continents, and eventually grew into the habit of abandoning wisdom altogether. One bright autumn day, he crashed through the forest, heedless of the tall pines he uprooted and the small woodland Pokémon he frightened. Finally, reaching the small city glittering with frost, he stumbled through the tiny wooden huts and across to a deep snowdrift, where he fell asleep, ignorant of the sobbing mother behind him, who stared at a dark shape sprawled in the snow and the red stain spreading beneath it.

Furious at his action, Uxie left the confines of the cavern where she meditated and flew to the slumbering Pokémon. Arousing him with a sharp psychic burst, she berated him for the destruction of the forest and city she loved, and the lives lost in the cold air. Turning on his side, the gargantuan legendary replied that he had not known he was doing any harm, and began to snore deeply.

Uxie's peaceful nature prevented her from attacking another; however, she resolved to have her vengeance. Before she left to help the mourning villagers rebuild their homes, she moved her delicate limbs in a complex sign, extinguishing the last remaining spark of intelligence in the enormous being's body.

Many days later, Regigigas had made his way to what we today call the Hoenn region, and was striding across the land. Growing sleepy in the heat given off by the nearby volcano, he lay down outside a town, ignoring the fences that lay broken behind him, the frightened livestock and crushed crops. When the labourers returned to the farm after their brief siesta, they cried out at the trail of devastation the legendary had smashed through their hard work, and sprinted along to its source, the dozing Regigigas.

They summoned their partners, three Magby, and had them send spurts of fire into the titan's skin until, slowly, he awoke. Rubbing his head with one mammoth hand, Regigigas questioned the labourers as to why they had attacked him. Outraged, they replied "Lord Regigigas, we are deeply sorry for having disturbed your sleep, but you have destroyed our farm, which took us several years to complete. We ask that you may help us to rebuild it."

With one mighty hand, Regigigas tore three objects from his body: a lump of rock, a lump of ice, and a lump of steel. These he breathed on, imbuing them with life, and placed in front of the labourers, saying "These three will assist you in your task. Now go, and leave me in peace."

With the taking of Uxie's gift, Regigigas had lost the knowledge that Arceus taught him he must value above all else; that he must never create another life. However, he knew this no more, so slept again, mind untroubled.

The labourers proceeded to give orders to the new beings, and to their delight found them competent, efficient workers, obeying commands in the blink of an eye. The damage to the fences was repaired in but an hour, and crops had been replanted and livestock returned to their pens shortly afterwards. Overjoyed at this miraculous gift, they rushed into the village to inform the elders.

The villagers assembled in front of the council hall, murmuring in wonder. Some spoke enthusiastically of how the golems could be put to use in harvesting the olives, while others insisted that they would be better used in maintaining the healing waters the town was famed for. Finally, a grey-haired elder rose, leaning on his grandson.

"My good people," he began, feeble eyes scanning the crowd, "when I first heard of this incredible happening I could not believe my daughter. However, when I was shown these new servants, their purpose occurred to me instantly. We know full well that those heathens of Mauville have been plotting against us ever since our two villages were founded. Today, with these divine soldiers, is the time to strike back!"

The labourers and several other villagers expressed doubt, but their voices were drowned in the eruption of cheers which shot into the air. As the sun rose over Mauville the next day, its inhabitants woke to see an immense metal figure striding along, glinting in the clear dawn-light. Their curiosity rapidly turned to fear and horror as the golem ripped through buildings and farmland, trampling adult and child alike, leaving not a home untouched, while its great steel face remained emotionless. A few lucky ones escaped to the catacombs below the city, where they huddled against the bones of their ancestors, waiting for a great steel limb to smash through the earth.

As she meditated in the deep cavern of Lake Acuity, Uxie winced at the shreds of emotion that snaked through the cold air to strike at her mind, but controlled herself, remembering that this was the only way to prevent further devastation. Even so, her body still shook with the screams of the dying, and she prayed that Arceus might preserve her siblings, who felt such things keenly, from harm.

Night fell over the remains of Mauville. In the small town by the volcano, the planned festivities continued, but with a touch of uneasiness. The villagers laughed and joked to each other's faces, but when alone they stared morosely into their cups, staring and staring as their sobriety slipped away from them and the wine became blood and the cup a deep wound slashed into the untouched flesh of an infant. Like a lone candle, the festival dwindled away to nothing, and the villagers crept to their homes to wash away the day's sins with sleep.

Finally, the sleeping titan awoke, and stumbled to his feet. Hoping to find food, he strode off in the direction of Mauville, but then stopped as the town came into view. He blinked, hoping to find it some trick of the moonlight or devilish Darkrai's curse, but the broken stones remained stubbornly in view.

Behind him, wrapped in shadows, Uxie arose from the trampled ground, painted black with the licking flames of the day before. With a sign, a brief movement of a delicate wrist, she returned his knowledge to him, and the horror of what he had done seared through his mind, making the titan collapse to the burnt earth and shed enormous tears from his many eyes. The Guardian of Knowledge appeared before the weeping legendary, and Regigigas fell to his knees, reaching out gigantic hands in supplication and begging for a way to redeem himself. Quietly, the graceful one told him "There is no way on earth for human or Pokémon to erase the sin of killing another; however, with caution we may prevent further lives being extinguished." Sobbing, the giant agreed to follow her every command.

Regigigas was sealed deep beneath the frozen earth in the city he had ravaged, to guard against the foolish attempting to grasp some of his power for themselves. The citizens erected a soaring stone temple over it, and each generation the wisest daughter of the snow-buried town was ordained as a priestess, overseeing the temple and its sleeping monster, and ensuring only those who had proved themselves worthy might enter. As a further protection against the disaster that destroyed Murasaki ever occurring again, the three golems were infused with a greater magic than that which had begun them, transforming them into the keys for their father's prison. Finally, Uxie cast a deep enchantment of sleep on all four, and protected their lairs with mazes and traps so that only the most courageous, cunning and powerful of humans could find them, on that day which the old scrolls predicted would bring a new hero to save them all.

**icefire24- It's on my to-do list. **

**This was somewhat shorter than the last chapter, but I hope it was still enjoyable. I'm currently contemplating chapters centred around the origin of the Pok****é****thlon, the creation of the Mystery Dungeon world (I briefly mentioned it in the first chapter, but I would like to develop it more) and possibly a piece on a couple of Unova legendaries. Have a good New Year.-Arcanus**


	7. The Meeting of Emotion and Willpower

The Meeting of Emotion and Willpower

Ever since the beginning of the universe, the fates of the ordinary inhabitants of the world had been closely entwined with those of the lake trio. Having given them their emotions, their knowledge and their willpower, they remained always watchful over the mortal beings, and –the gift of the Original One before She entered Her eternal sleep- were the only legendaries capable of bonding with the mortals, implanting a piece of their own soul within them to bless them with powers the like of which others could only dream of. In their turn, the everyday humans and Pokémon were constantly respectful and thankful towards the trio, ensuring that their children were told the tales of the horrific consequences of disturbing the three so that their lake homes remained peaceful, and that the shrines to them were always cleaned well and never wanted for gifts. The understanding between the higher and lower beings was deep and profound. Even the dark and light gods of the secluded region far to the north that once fought for the two brothers warring over the country could not boast of a closer bond.

As the years passed, gratitude to the trio only increased. Uxie's creation of the Granter of Wishes and the Guardian of Forests earned her much adoration, even as she retreated from the public eye to spend the rest of her existence meditating in a cave. Whenever a battle was fought and the warriors of justice seemed likely to lose, Azelf flew above them, shrieking war-cries at the foe, and victory would come quickly. Mesprit bestowed not only the powerful emotions upon his devotees, the all-consuming rage which enabled them to surpass their limits and the sorrow which spurred them on to revenge, but also calm, a simple peace which gave them the capability to endure any kind of torment. The gifts that the chosen mortals received were even greater: the ability to read minds, to understand any language, including that of different species, to fight for hours without feeling fatigued, to ignore pain to such an extent as to be able to destroy boulders with bare hands… The devotion became so great that those allied to a particular god began to live in camps, then to build huts, then larger shrines, then full-fledged temples, lined with statues of the object of their worship. Priesthoods sprung up, finding their recruits among the humans and Pokémon that wished to spend the rest of their lives serving their god, cleaning the temple, leading processions throughout the villages. Daily, incense was burned in front of the images of the deities and the statues adorned with garlands. Some legendaries began to look at the trio with envious eyes, wondering how they commanded the respect and love of whole nations despite appearing so feeble.

Occasionally, the gods they worshipped would make an appearance in front of them, a transparent, evanescent silhouette briefly appearing in front of them, its vague outline blurred by the sweet-smelling smoke rising from the temple braziers. A brief flash of colour would appear before the kneeling priests, ocean-blue, dawn-pink, or sun-yellow, before the shape vanished altogether. The devotees would press their foreheads to the floor and feel the fires of their faith stoked by the brief, momentary glimpse of their deity.

Eventually, the Custodian of Knowledge ceased to appear at her temples, claiming that to indulge the worshippers in this careless manner could lead them to the brink of insanity. Her followers became quieter, retreating to the sanctuaries they had built, but nonetheless continued to pray to her. By contrast, the Cult of Willpower and the Cult of Emotion became more fascinated by their gods with each day that passed. The inhabitants of the respective villages began to identify themselves with signs- first tattoos, a blue diamond on the forehead for the followers of Willpower and a pink oval on the collarbone for the devotees of Emotion, then metal sigils, hanging from chains around their necks, then robes of identical shade to their god's flesh. As the physical signs of their worship intensified, so too did the language they used in speaking of their beloved legendaries. It became common for Pokémon priests of the temple to venture into the woods and teach the woodland inhabitants of the superiority of their god, whilst their human counterparts gave the same sermon to the peoples of the village. As the certainty of the all-surpassing power of their respective legendaries grew for the two tribes, so too did their unshakeable belief in their own righteousness.

Squabbles began to break out between the two camps. At first, they quickly found excuses- infringements of borders, theft of water or crops, but these were soon abandoned in favour of sheer violence against the other cult, always invoking the name of the legendary as justification. Sympathising with the moods of their followers, the Master of Emotion and the Master of Will mirrored the conflict on the earth with similar battles in the heavens. Even in the Hall of Origin, where all fighting was forbidden lest it provoke the wrath of the Original One, the two continued their war in fierce debates and disagreements over the smallest detail, hurling abuse at one another as the other deities looked on in horror and disgust. More than one drew a fellow legendary aside after the council meetings and asked if they thought it wise to allow the duo to retain their positions.

Eventually, with her abhorrence of bloodshed making the quarrel intolerable at last, the Bringer of Dreams stepped between the two and demanded that they end their conflict quickly, before the mortals suffered any further through their hatred. She spoke of the endless disturbed nights that she sought to soothe with her comforting fantasies, and of the corpses to whom she could no longer provide any solace. The other legendaries stood behind her, threatening to end it themselves if they refused. With no choice, the two exchanged bitter looks and agreed to take part in single combat, to forever decide the future of the two clans.

Late that night, each appeared in front of the gathered cultists and delivered the news of the match. They would select the follower with the highest potential and bond with them, elevating their ability to new heights. The two would then join in combat against one another the following morning, and the victor, as well as claiming the opponent's life, would claim everything the defeated cult had to offer. The losing clan, whether it be Emotion or Willpower, would submit to the will of the triumphant one, and would be forced to eradicate every trace of the worship of their god or face death. They would be assimilated into the victor's clan, visibly no different from the true members, but for the fact they would remain constantly inferior, no better than slaves taken into the bosom of the clan and kept alive from pure pity. Both expressed outrage at the sad conclusion to which they had been driven, but reminded their followers of their confidence in them, and asked for volunteers to preserve the strength of the clan.

As the Master of Willpower concluded, one stepped up. A Lucario, muzzle scarred from many battles, powerfully muscled and well-respected among his comrades for his bravery, volunteered to join with the god he worshipped and crush the Emotion Cult's infamy. At this declaration, his fellow cultists let out a wild battle cry and beat loudly on the ground. Azelf accepted him, holding his spiked paw high in the air and calling to the tribespeople to face their champion as the cheers rang out into the black night.

Likewise, in the village of Emotion one young Gardevoir, ruby eyes shimmering with diamond tears, stood among her massed family and requested that she be permitted to avenge the wrongs the worshippers of Willpower had done to them. Over the assorted cries of sorrow, jubilation, and fury coming from her fellows, the Master of Emotion accepted her, telling her that no matter how the odds might seem stacked against them, the strength she carried within her heart would suffice.

Each combatant was taken aside into the depths of the woods that surrounded the two camps and there performed a ritual which they could never speak of to another living being. There, the soul of legendary and mortal came together, bound tightly to one another, and blended inextricably into a new form. There was no longer Mesprit, Master of Emotion: gone was Azelf, Master of Willpower. There was no longer Vacarlax, the noble Lucario: Syrina the loving Gardevoir had likewise vanished. There was only the Warrior and the Defender, the two foes that do battle through the aeons, present yet unseen throughout every war, and filled with hatred for the foe.

Morning rose fresh and beautiful, with clear skies and gold-tipped clouds, and the grass that would soon be blood-soaked was beaded with dew. In silence, the Warrior and the Defender walked out to the middle. The two exchanged cool, appraising looks, and, from the depths of the mind-prisons of the possessed, the entities that had once been Mesprit and Azelf felt the anticipation of the fight thrilling through their veins. Aura swirled around the Warrior's lightning-fast fists, whilst the subtle hands of the Defender were outlined in blue light.

The two stood, both unwilling to make the first move, and said nothing.

Suddenly, from between them, came an intense golden light that blinded both combatants, and a voice commanding them to cease. The demi-gods turned their heads to see an Absol, small and lacking in experience, but with the blank irises that marked it out as a creature bonded with a legendary. Behind the harsh, strident tones of the Absol's voice came the unmistakeable logic of the Guardian of Knowledge, and the two halted in their anger from sheer astonishment. This was the Scholar, the third figure in the neverending war, and it spoke of peace, of treaties, of the folly of solving a feud that had already brought so much violence by adding another body to the mass graves dug outside the fighting camps. It spoke of shame and repentance and purgatory, and ordered its siblings to separate and return the two mortals to their families. Furthermore, it demanded that the two tribes should never fight again, and that, as insurance to this end, each year the clans should exchange ten apprentices as a sign of goodwill.

Humiliated by the Scholar's words, Vacarlax and Syrina were released, and its every request was carried out to the letter. Each year, ten children of the Emotion village were sent to calm their hot tempers in the cool of the Willpower school of battling, and to apply their natural tolerance and sympathy to learning the skill of caring for the Pokémon partners that accompanied them to raise them to their maximum potential. Conversely, the Willpower children learned to soften their inherent hard hearts and to train their partners to help others, besides being taught the trick of befriending the wild Pokémon that roamed freely in the forests. Although both tribes are long since gone, the practices set in place by the exchange of apprentices remain very much in place, and are currently both considered to be among the most noble and respectable trades a youth may join.

**I noticed that this idea fitted particularly well with the idea I had for the following chapter, that of the creation myth for the Mystery Dungeon world, and therefore chose to do this one first. The follow-up should show up eventually. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, namely A pokemon Kid, icefire24, and l0rdn1hilus, and for all the feedback and ideas you have given me- including the inspiration for this chapter. **

**By the way… I probably should have mentioned this before, but didn't due to the fact I am assuming at least a basic level of intelligence among the people who visit this site. If I owned Pokémon, I wouldn't have to look on Amazon for cut-price copies of Tracks of Light. Thank you for tolerating my stating the blatantly obvious. - Arcanus**


	8. Utopia

Utopia

Although the Willpower-Emotion War had ended, the desolation it had wreaked over the land of Sinnoh was still unresolved. There was the rebuilding of the two villages to consider, the healing of the sick and injured to be completed, and the sour taste of hatred left in the fighters' mouths to remove. Even at the sight of their champions reconciled, at peace with one another and willing to make amends for their cults' past actions, there were some still opposed to the treaty that seemed no better to them than sickening enforced submission, secured with the exchange of offspring each year. With the greatest reluctance, they swallowed their bitterness and refrained from harming the children of the opposing clan that came to study with theirs each year, but, when others were sleeping, they locked themselves away and regarded the clan symbols they refused to throw away, silently praying to their god for better days.

As is inevitably the way among mortals, tensions escalated, quarrels arose, and blame was laid right and left. Humans blamed Pokémon, the Pokémon responded with equal venom, and the fighting between the ex-cult members seemed as if it would turn more deadly than the war which had devastated them. Finally, one Staraptor declared to a crowd of her fellows that the world would have been a better place without the humans. Her call was taken up across the land, and soon the inhabitants of the wild were all baying for the blood of the humans, the aggressive, rabble-rousing humans, to be spilt across the earth that was rightfully their own.

They even violated borders that had previously possessed a sanctity above all others, and stampeded into the cave in which Uxie meditated to demand a solution from her. The Custodian of Omniscience refused, ordering them to take their petty quarrels from the sacred place, but the Pokémon simply smiled, and suggested that she look outside. Floating from her place of rest, Uxie used her mind to look upon what her soul-stealing eyes could not, and saw an immense army, stretching over the horizon into the crimson sky, clustered outside the cavern, each with claws unsheathed and tongue calling for her to come forth and destroy their enemies.

The Guardian of Wisdom reached into her infinite, insatiable intelligence to find the words which would resolve their nascent battle, but they scattered from her as soon as she approached. Surrounded by crowds of berserkers on each side, she felt waves of panic submerge her all-surpassing intellect, and, letting out a cry of pure fear, she shot into the sky, a golden-and-grey comet speeding towards the Hall of Origin.

Uxie touched down outside the golden casket containing the sleeping form of the Original One, and let out a flood of tears from her ever-closed eyes. "Powerful One, You gave me this mind in order that I might help and supervise the mortals, but they have gone beyond my judgement. They hunger only for death, and wisdom no longer has an effect. Please, I am helpless; lend me Your strength."

As she lay collapsed on the marble floor of the Hall, a great cracking was heard, and the vault which contained the Original One began to open, an unbearably bright light shining from it. A shadowed silhouette moved slowly from the glowing heart of the casket, the sound of its footsteps echoing among the pillars. It emerged, and before the distraught Guardian of Knowledge stood Arceus, the Original One, She who could shape the universe, staring down at her with undeniable benevolence and sympathy.

"Calm yourself, Uxie," the Original One said, haloed in brightness. "This was ordained from the very beginning, the rivalry of Azelf and Uxie, the war, the coming of these new, bloodthirsty ones… yes, even the failure of yourself, bastion of all good counsel. Even as you were in the first few heartbeats of your existence, I prepared for this. The time of Utopia has arrived."

Bowing her head, Uxie shed tears of relief. "But how…?"

The First inclined Her neck to Uxie's level. "Simply leave this Hall, and tell your pursuers that, should they wish to leave the world of humans behind, there will be another one waiting. To you I gave the brightest intellect; you will shortly understand my meaning. Gather the Psychics." With this, She turned and Her shadow began to recede into the vault once more. "Finally… be prepared to use the most unspeakable of your gifts."

As she had been instructed, the Custodian of Omniscience left the Hall and passed the message on. "Utopia" was whispered up and down the region as if carried on the winds, and many prepared to leave their homes and the world they had so loved. The winds also carried rumours of the new world; a planet where humans would be their servants instead, where the most delicious berries sprung forth from every bush, where battling would be rendered unnecessary except as a source of leisure... those that had struggled to scratch a living for so long allowed themselves to dream of a paradise. As they wondered about the world they had been promised, Uxie followed the Original One's second instruction. Every Pokémon with the faintest trace of psychic ability was recruited for a purpose they swore never to reveal. As she flew the length and breadth of the land, the Guardian allowed herself to contemplate the third instruction, and fathom what the Original One could have meant.

Finally, the day of Utopia arrived. An army of Pokémon that carried bundles of food and blankets as its weapons massed in a valley near Mount Coronet. The Psychics stationed themselves on the mountains surrounding the settlers, with folded arms and impassive expressions. The crowd shivered in the chill of the morning, impatiently waiting for the miracle they craved.

With the pale disc of the sun, a small being rose among the mountain peaks. With a nod to the Psychics, it raised its hands above its head, and began to focus its power. The Psychics mirrored the movement around the valley, and soon each held a bright orb of energy the colour of Arceus' fur. Their muscles straining, each launched their sphere towards the huddled Pokémon, and saw their world consumed in a maelstrom of strange colours as the winds of space-time carried them away.

The fickle spatial currents eddied back and forth, but finally delivered them onto a cliff overlooking an azure sea. The sun blazed down brightly overhead, and such a perfect blue sky had not been seen for many decades. They gasped with pleasure, and even the near-emotionless Steels and Psychics felt smiles creeping over their faces. They had been promised a new world; they had been given perfection.

A Luxray climbed onto a nearby rock and gave thanks to the Psychics which had brought them to their Utopia. He spoke of the towns they would build, and the civilisation they would forge, and the extraordinary future that lay ahead of them. After a brief while, he concluded, thanking the audience for giving him their time and promising that, soon, the infrastructure of their new world would be in place, and they could return to conquer the one they had left, freeing their brothers and sisters and building for them an equally outstanding world.

The cold weight of realisation fell upon the Guardian's mind, and she understood the meaning of the Original One's words. Preparing herself and begging for forgiveness, Uxie flew into the centre of the crowd.

The eyes which had remained shut since her birth were finally opened to gaze on the world, and it was at once great and terrible. She flew hither and thither, briefly glancing into the eyes of each, and in an instant, the knowledge of several thousand lifetimes was obliterated. When each memory had finally evaporated, the Custodian of Omniscience fell to the ground, with a multitude of quietly breathing bodies littered about her, and the ever-watchful Psychics ringing the scene.

Uxie prepared herself to destroy the minds of the Psychics, too, but realised that her earlier theft had been great enough. Long-closed eyes stared up at the sun of the new world, and the Guardian of Wisdom whispered quiet instructions to the sky, warning of future dangers and advising them on the construction of their society. With a unanimous nod, the Psychics departed, wholeheartedly accepting their mission.

Once the sleeping Pokémon had awoken, some found themselves with peaceful hearts and no memory of conflict, believing humans to be a child's myth. Some, the ones who had stared into Uxie's eyes for an instant too long, found themselves with an uncontrollable desire to fight anything that was not feral like themselves, and had no understanding of anything beyond the finding of the next meal. These were taken away by the Psychics and cast into great fissures that had opened up in the ground. It is said that the braver of the civilised Pokémon would venture into these fissures in search of food and battles, and would attempt to convince the feral ones to join them. Whether they succeeded is a matter clouded to this world's eyes.

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PikaAndArceus- The Gerbils Cometh. Eventually.

**To both of my most recent reviewers- yes, the Latis will make an appearance sooner or later. Having been somewhat nasty to the majority of the humans in this story, I suspect that they will probably develop a close bond and some kind of epic quest will be involved. I'm still thinking about it, however. I also have a separate story to this planned, so the following chapter may be a tad shorter than usual. Au revoir until I stop procrastinating.-Arcanus**


	9. Two Simple Stories

Two Simple Tales

The Letters and the Cave

After Mew had scattered the seeds of life across the world, most had quickened into the beings of the Original One's creation. However, some continued to slumber, having found nothing with which to bond and create new life. Mew, being a kind-hearted goddess, took it upon herself to travel throughout the world, awakening the lost and lonely creatures that still did not possess true existence.

Her journey took her from the highest mountain ranges to the deepest trenches yawning in the sea floor. It was an arduous quest, and she endured much hardship, yet persevered, giving freedom to the seeds of life wherever she found them. With grateful cries, they became new Pokémon, and departed, promising to spread the word of her journey wherever they went. The kind words spurred the goddess on, both humans and Pokémon were always willing to provide food and shelter, and eventually there remained very few seeds that had not been quickened.

One day, Mew travelled through a forest filled with bug Pokémon, looking hither and thither for more abandoned beings. She found none, despite lifting the heaviest fallen trees and peering into the depths of crystal pools, and ventured on. Wandering down a side path through the wood, she found herself in the centre of a square of earth lined with stone temples that seemed as old as she was herself. Being a curious legendary, she was intrigued by the strange buildings, and passed through the door of the nearest into its shadowy interior.

As she floated down the darkened corridor, she seemed to hear muffled moans and cries coming from somewhere in the temple. Pressing her ear to the rock, she heard the sounds once more, and unleashed a powerful psychic attack on the wall. Mysteriously, the wall resisted the onslaught, despite the goddess' strength. She ventured deeper into the interior of the temple, yet was baffled, for the temples had been built as complicated labyrinths that would test the reckoning of even an Alakazam.

Finally, Mew reached the very heart of the temple, and was faced with an immense stone door. Before she could destroy it with her abilities, it slid away before her, revealing a small room writhing and heaving with golden, chattering life-seeds, their glow lighting the entire room. As she stood on the threshold, astounded, their unfathomable mutterings rose to a crescendo, and, as one, they flew towards her, their high voices entering her mind, pleading to be given life.

Mew offered one to the stone from which the room was built, but the seed glowed a deep red and began to chatter angrily at her. She offered one to the dirt floor, but was likewise spurned. With growing desperation, she fled the temple, seeking an object that she could join to the furious lost souls.

The nearby town was deserted, its inhabitants having left to attend a festival in a neighbouring village. Mew sped into an abandoned house, searching every corner, but all she could find was a simple ink-stone and calligraphy brush. Gathering them up, she returned to the temple, heart pounding furiously.

Having found the sealed chamber once again, all the seeds gathered round her in a cloak of gold, demanding to be given their new forms. Mew's mind raced as the venom of the cries became palpable. With an inspiration worthy of Uxie, she wetted the ink-stone, took up the brush, and painted a symbol on the floor, consisting of two diagonal lines bridged by a horizontal one. Standing back, she offered it to the seeds. One floated forward, examining it curiously from every angle, then merged with the shape and disappeared. The symbol rose into the air, and a single eye opened at its top. Thus the first Unown began.

For the rest of that day, Mew sat in the cave painting symbols, enough to satisfy each of the seeds clamouring at her shoulders. By the time dusk fell, the beginning of a hundred languages clustered around the life-giving goddess. As the final Unown floated into the air, they spelled out their thanks in a dozen tongues, then joined themselves to the wall, becoming nothing but patterns.

Yet this was not the end of the Unown. When Mew turned, she found two more seeds waiting for her, humbly begging for bodies of their own. But Mew's invention had run out; no matter how strenuously she searched her mind, she could find no more sounds to sketch symbols for. The tone of one of the seeds became angry, whilst the other's turned to confusion. With a sudden spark of genius, the Life-Giver drew one black stroke across the floor, mirroring the warrior's stab to the heart, and mimicked the hazy thoughts of the unenlightened with a curved line, giving each a dot for the eye. As the seeds came to life, language was complete. Soon, beings across the land would be transcribing their thoughts, whilst, unseen, the Unown lurked in the background, ever-watchful from its ever-open eye.

The Fisherman's Child

Once upon a time, when the great cities had not yet risen and Pokémon and humans basked daily in the warmth of nature, there stood a simple fisherman's hut by a wide, clear lake.

In it lived a poor fisherman, who fed himself, his wife and his son with the aquatic stock of the waters. Daily he ventured out into its centre, ever accompanied by his faithful Vaporeon, who would melt into the depths and hound the fish, biting and snapping, into his nets. As his father trawled the lake, the boy would sit on the bank and watch with longing, skipping stones across the water, waiting for the day when he would be old enough to travel in the boat.

Time passed, the trees shed their leaves and grew new ones, and, finally, the day came when the fisherman stood in front of his son and told him that he would take him fishing the next morning. To add to his joy, his father told him that he would also receive a Pokémon to sit at his side as he worked. That night, the boy slept little.

Before dawn had broken over the glassy waters, the boy had arisen and strode back and forth impatiently, waiting for his parents to wake. Finally, they rose from their futon, and his father took his hand and led him behind the house as his mother began to prepare breakfast.

They sped over the dew-lapped grass and shallow puddles as the chill air snapped at them both. Parting a wall of reeds, the father knelt and beckoned his son closer. Beyond the reeds lay a pond, and in the pond floated a Magikarp, staring up at him with inquisitive eyes.

Biting back his distaste, the boy thanked his father for the gift, placed the Pokémon into the water-filled vessel that the man now held, and followed him home to breakfast. He held his tongue throughout the day, as the man explained the rudiments of his craft and instructed him on the handling of the oars. It was only at nightfall, when he crouched alone by the waterside, his Magikarp splashing before him, that he gave vent to his anger.

"Weak, useless, worthless! Can you do _anything _of value? Show me your true power!"

Yet the Magikarp did nothing, merely replying with the strange sounds that characterise its kind. The boy's fury grew, and, wrenching a limb from a nearby willow, he laid about the fish, demanding that it demonstrate some skill. Desperate, bleeding, the Magikarp receded into the lake, uttering cries of pain. The son returned to the hut and told his father that the Pokémon had simply swum away.

Time passed, trees grew rotten and fell, and the boy's father continued to teach him. By the time the fisherman expired, breath laboured with the sickness that raged across the regions that summer, the boy had taken over the task, and had acquired a Seaking to help him bring in the catch. It was dutiful, obedient and served him well. He married a girl from a charcoal-burner's family and had three children. Life was satisfactory.

Then, one autumn, the numbers of the fish began to fall. None of the small family inhabiting the lakeside cabin could fathom the cause. One day, the fisherman ventured out onto the lake with the Seaking at his side, searching its farthest reaches for any lurking schools of Remoraid or Finneon.

As he approached the middle, a great shadow rose from the depths, fangs reddened with the lifeblood of the Goldeen they pierced and eyes filled with loathing. The Gyarados stared down at him, and the fisherman felt the bile of terror rising in his throat. This, he knew instantly, must be the scorned Magikarp, his abandoned partner. Falling to his knees, he begged for the creature to spare him, offering friendship, food, anything it desired. He was met with a look of contempt.

The sickening crunching of bones could be heard for miles around, and neither the fisherman nor the Seaking returned that day. Once the mourning period had concluded, his widow took her children and their scanty possessions and commanded her Ponyta to incinerate the hut. As she and they walked away, two malicious eyes reflected the flaming cabin.


	10. The Trials of the Two Brothers

The Trials of the Two Brothers

In a small clan that made its home deep in the heart of the forest, there lived a family that had twin sons. The elder was generally agreed to be the more handsome, brave and intelligent of the pair, and was lavished with all that his parents had to offer. The younger had a crooked tail, shied away from even the smallest of Weedle and spent most of his hours in an endless dream, wandering through the shadowed glades and absent-mindedly staring at flowers, yet those who knew him came to respect him for his kind heart and humility. However, his inferior rank wounded his heart, and daily he would wish that he might be given a chance to prove himself.

When the two brothers were fast approaching manhood, and the females of the clan were laughing in the moss-draped branches about which they might take for a mate, the younger, growing close to desperation, begged to be able to prove himself. The clan elders, taking pity on him, consulted among themselves and decided to give him his chance. The two brothers would undertake a journey to a distant mountain, collecting, along their way, numerous treasures that they would place there. The one that first arrived at the peak with the treasures would be declared the victor. Smiling gratefully, the younger brother bowed to the elders, and left to prepare himself.

When the challenge was announced to the clan, the elder brother laughed, and cast a scornful glance in the direction of his sibling, whose cheeks burned even deeper red with shame. Did his foolish brother truly believe that he was capable of outpacing his brother, much less climbing a mountain that had seen off many brave Pokémon? A few sighs and rolled eyes passed around those assembled, but the majority raised their voices in the support of the older brother. Smirking, the elder sibling padded into the shelter of his dwelling, and lay curled there, shielding himself from the midday sun.

The night before the challenge began, the brothers' parents called their eldest child to them and gifted him with all that he could possibly need. Fresh berries and seeds with the most delectable flavours, beautifully woven rugs of leaves for those nights when he could not find shelter, and carefully made pouches to contain the treasures he would find were packed lovingly into a satchel. The younger brother was greeted merely with glares, scathing questions as to why he had dared disrupt daily life with his foolish requests, and the throwing of a thin blanket at his head. Shaking his head sadly, he gathered it up and left, vowing to prove his family wrong.

As the sun rose into a cloud-dappled sky, the clan members assembled at the two paths leading from their settlement. In the centre stood the two brothers- the elder garlanded with chains of flowers, the younger clutching the blanket he had been given. Silently, they stared ahead as the elders once again explained the rules of their challenge, instructing each to follow the path ahead of them until they arrived at the mountain peak. They wished them luck, then stood back to allow them the choice of the road they would take.

The older brother jostled his way to the front, and strode down the left path, garland floating brightly over his shoulder. The younger thanked all those that had come to wish them a safe journey, and began to wend his way down the right path. The clan members watched quietly until both bobbing tails had vanished into the gloom of the forest.

Before long, sustained by his plentiful supplies, the elder brother came upon the first of the treasures- an ancient carved-bone flute. He lifted it from the ground, only to writhe in agony as his body was ravaged with the sensation of flickering flames. Screaming, he dropped the flute, but the burning sensation continued, and he fell to the forest floor, curled in a ball, sobbing, as the pain took over his every sense.

On the other path, the weary younger brother had finally reached the first of his treasures. It was identical to that of the other brother, and identical in effect. He gritted his teeth, wrapped the flute in his bedding, and limped further down the path, wishing that he had the strength of his sibling.

By nightfall, both had advanced through the forest and made camp. The elder brother, still wincing from the effects of his treasure, lit a fire and settled down to a hearty repast. The younger brother collapsed against a tree and closed his eyes. He might not have survived if the kindly god Shaymin had not been passing by, taken pity on the mortal, and caused a shrub to grow beside him. The younger opened his eyes to find branches unfurling on his right, laden with plump fruit. Momentarily putting aside his confusion in favour of soothing his growing hunger, he plucked one, dedicated half to the legendaries, and took a tentative bite from his own portion. Instantly, his starving body was satisfied, and the invisible flames greatly diminished. Finishing his meal, the younger brother lay on the grass and gazed at the stars before falling asleep.

Morning came, and with it the resumption of their journey. The elder brother was still in pain from the previous day, and found it increasingly hard to place one paw in front of another. However, he still possessed his strength, and reached the second treasure before noon. This time, it took the form of a small jade orb, with complicated patterns engraved into its surface. Remembering the effects of the flute, the brother reached for it warily. He relaxed briefly when the sensation of burning evaporated from his form, but cried out once more as it was replaced by the feeling of electricity crackling through his veins. Body aching once more, he slipped the sphere into a pouch and continued further into the forest. The younger brother, finding his treasure an hour or so later, was met with the same lightning stabbing at his senses. He followed in his sibling's footsteps, and began to walk down the track once more.

As dusk wrapped itself around the forest, the events of the previous night repeated themselves. The elder distracted himself from the pain by warming himself beside the fire and eating, whilst the younger, having nothing, sheltered beneath a leafy canopy, starving. Fortunately, his suffering was halted by the machinations of the Flower-Bringer, who, interested in the mortal and his tale of woe, brought him another berry-laden tree. Again, he sacrificed a portion to the gods; again, the pains of travel were rapidly soothed, and his sleep was peaceful and undisturbed. On the other side of the trees, his brother tossed and turned, groaning so loudly as to wake the Pidgey who roosted above his head.

Over the course of their travels, their routine repeated itself. With each new torture, every time their bodies were choked with poison, immobilised with ice, made heavy and drowsy, or befuddled, both would suffer on until the setting of the sun, when the elder brother would feast and the younger dine on simple fruit and feel his pain melt away. By the time they reached the base of the mountain, the younger had become confident and powerful, capable of ignoring his suffering for miles at a stretch, whereas the elder grumbled constantly, only contenting himself with the thoughts of how much worse his sibling's trials must be.

Paws crunching for the first time on the unblemished snow of the mountain peak, the younger brother smiled at the waiting clan elder, and handed over the carefully kept treasures. On the opposite side, his brother scrambled, panting, towards them, only to see the elder hand the victor a mixture of herbs to cure his pains, and hold his paw aloft as he savoured his triumph.

Sore, both from the tortures that ravaged his body and the knowledge that the inferior sibling had beaten him, the enraged older brother lunged at the elder, demanding that she reconsider. His claws were unsheathed, glinting in the morning sun, and dangerously sharp. With a single Iron Tail, the younger knocked him, bruised and bleeding, down the slope. Muttering of the impossibility of his victory, the blossom garlands withered around his neck, the elder sibling fled, never to be seen again.

The younger brother returned to the clan, and received a heartfelt welcome from all. His estranged parents swallowed their pride and welcomed him into the bosom of the family. It was said throughout the clan that there was only one affliction that he never recovered from, that of infatuation, as he won the heart of its prettiest female and remained devoted to her for the rest of his life. Today, all Pokémon proudly suffer through the torments that the legendary younger brother endured, and it is no longer considered weak to have a crooked tail.

**There you go, children. Mew invented the alphabet, two random Pikachu are responsible for those annoying status effects, and being a fisherman is an extremely dangerous career choice. Any further questions?**

**Double update for you today, to compensate for my long hiatus. Sorry about that. Coursework and such. Anyway, it's here now, so I hope you enjoyed it.- Arcanus**


	11. The Dragons and the Sacrifice

The Dragons and the Sacrifice

Once, long ago, when the humans had abandoned the rustic settlements in favour of great stone cities and the Pokémon had followed them, when legendaries still sometimes appeared in the absence of a world-threatening cataclysm and Pokélantis had not yet fallen, two dragons, brother and sister, terrorised a city built on a thousand islands.

The younger, the sister, was a deep red, mirroring the passion in her nature which translated itself into a hunger for destruction; the elder, the brother, was blue, reflecting the coolness with which he watched the city's inhabitants run from the terror which they unleashed upon them. No siblings more devoted, yet more heartless, could be found. It was unknown from where they had come, what foul beast could have borne them, or why they had chosen that city. Some said that the Original One Herself had sent them as a punishment for having the audacity to bury the islands under the weight of their dwellings. Others believed that they were a test; that adversity would show them to be loyal and faithful to the legendaries. Whatever the differing theories among the groups of haggard survivors that collected themselves each night in whatever shelter they could find, all remained in mortal fear of the two demons that plagued them.

Finally, when the citizens could no longer venture out during the day for fear of being struck down, some began to resist. The Pokémon trained night and day to combat the threat, and their human partners crafted weapons so that they might fight alongside them. Yet, no matter how vigorous the training or cunningly made the weapons, they were cut down time and time again. Some tried to reason with the beings, having seen them wield psychic power, and believing that they must, at heart, be creatures of intelligence and understanding. Likewise, they, too, were destroyed.

As the numbers still living inside the city dwindled and hope began to drift away like the bodies carried from their shores by the tides, a young boy and girl made their own plans. Before, both had been trained in the psychic arts by the best teachers in the city, and it had been widely said that they could be the strongest ever seen. Silently, the younger twin listened to his sister's scheme, and gave a single nod.

They took themselves to the long-abandoned rooftops of the city, and waited, clearly visible, for the monsters to return. The siblings took only the briefest of respites for food, water or sleep, ensuring that at least one pair of eyes was ever fixed on the horizon. In a matter of days, the shrieking comets came hurtling towards the city once more, and the two, as one, rose and stared calmly at the approaching threat.

The sister raised her palm towards the blue-skinned demon, and her brother mirrored the gesture for the red-coloured. Both were masters of sight-sharing, the power to see through another's eyes, to know the thoughts streaming through their mind, to feel the beat of their heart, and now they expended all the effort they could to extend that knowledge to the twin demons. Into their eyes came flooding the agony of an old man as they gleefully tore apart his body; the sobbed prayer of a young girl who watched the husk that used to be her father floating out to sea; the sharp terror of those who had walked the streets and felt a sudden pain stab into them as the creatures, invisible to all through their manipulation of the air, slid their claws into their backs. They halted in their flight, came crashing onto the rooftop beside the two humans, and glistening in their yellow, emotionless eyes were the first tears they had ever cried.

Faced with the sickening knowledge of what they had done, the demons hung their heads and asked to be executed. The twins dismissed it, refusing to sin as they had sinned, and telling them to atone for their past evils by helping the citizens. There would be many who called for blood, certainly; but there would be enough who wanted peace and would be willing to forgive. The demons made a formal bow of thanks and vowed to protect the city for all eternity.

As the siblings had predicted, there were many who demanded that they be destroyed for what they had done. Yet, when they asked for support from the crowd, they received only jeers and more calls of hatred. One shouted from the back that they should be silent lest they be punished themselves, saviours or no saviours. Their call was taken up by the rest of the crowd, and soon the twins found themselves running for their lives, with fierce Houndoom baying at their heels all the way through the maze of alleys and bridges, until they finally reached the dilapidated building in which they lived. Alarmed by the commotion and the sight of their masters running in through the door, bruised and panting, the demons unmasked themselves, ready to come to their aid and ask what was troubling them, but a single look at their faces and the cries of the mob outside was enough.

The demons argued with the siblings, demanding that they be allowed to give themselves to the enraged population before they were murdered themselves. The twins reminded them of the contract they had made- for how could they defend the city if they lost their lives at the hands of its people? The sun fell as they fought on, and, with great reluctance, the older demon led his sister to their bedroom, whispering to her that they would give themselves up before their masters woke.

When the sun's rays filled the room, the younger demon woke, and immediately set about pulling her brother from sleep. Cautiously, they floated past the siblings' room, but before they could exit the building, the younger tugged at her brother's wing, begging to see their masters for the last time. They glanced into the room, taking care to be silent- and found it empty.

Struck by a sudden fear, they tore through the building, searching everywhere for their masters, with no luck. Panicking, the elder heard a whimper from his sister, and saw her watching from a window that overlooked the square. He came to her side, and gasped as he saw the rudimentary gallows that had been erected in front of the moored boats, and the two silhouettes that climbed its steps in front of the roaring crowd.

With their extraordinary hunters' hearing, each word was as clear as a bell:

"Who are you that come here, to the death-place of the monsters?"

"We are the monsters, human. We took the forms of our masters, for we serve them and it is thus fitting."

"You dare to appear as our saviours when it is you that have wrought this? Speak, curse you!" The executioner's whip lashed against the older girl. She winced, but refused to cry out.

"So stubborn, eh? Tch. The only cure for such defiance is death. Stand, demons, and may you be plunged into Hell without a moment's haste."

Even the demons' speed could never be enough to save their masters. All that the elder demon could do was encourage his sister to flee, and fly his fastest out of the building, yet it was not quick enough to evade the simultaneous cracks that echoed around the square.

They landed in a deserted alley on the other side of the city, coated with filth and filled with stray Purrloin. The younger demon sobbed, pleading to be allowed to hunt the inhabitants down for what they had done, but her brother calmed her, telling her that they had been appointed guardians of the city, and that their masters would not have wanted more havoc to be created across it. Drying their tears, the two promised to ensure that the twins' sacrifice was not in vain. They focused their energies and caused a symbol to appear on their chests, red for the elder, in memory of the girl, blue for the younger, in memory of the boy. Furthermore, having no names, they remembered the word meaning _hidden _in the old tongue of the city, and took it for the own; the male became Latios, the female Latias. With one final prayer for their lost masters, they masked themselves, and became nothing more than the slightest shimmering of the air.

Once the mob had ceased its animal excitement with the deaths of their enemies, they forgot their anger, and began to reconstruct their home. As the new towers and palaces rose around them, odd things began to happen. When the day's supply of stone had been exhausted and the workers were stumbling to their beds, dreading the thought of carrying more from the quarry the following day, they would wake to find a fresh load piled neatly by the sites that needed it most. They posted guards near the building sites, but sooner or later they inevitably fell asleep, and the marble or limestone would be fully restocked. Some heard the rumours and said that it must be the protective spirits of the Saviour Twins, who had not been seen since the demons' hanging all those months ago. Hope spread like a wildfire throughout the city, and, in a matter of years, it stood proud once again, even better than it had been. The final task on which they worked was the construction of a beautiful garden, filled with fresh flowers and shaded with tall trees, in the memory of the vanished twins who had preserved them from death. Unseen, Latios and Latias watched, giving only a brief nod of approval before leaving, making the wind-chimes shiver and jangle.

Soon, the Psychics found them. They had sensed two powerful minds moving around the city ever since the hanging, and it was merely a matter of time before their mental probing brought them to the siblings. They fed them, protected them from curious eyes, and, finally, took them into the gardens and surrounded them with an illusion in the form of a thick, high wall, seemingly impenetrable, yet as yielding as smoke when walked through. The citizens were at first puzzled by the sudden disappearance of their gardens, but then accepted it as another miracle and went about their daily lives once more. Inside their haven, Latias and Latios relaxed, safe from the predators that had hunted them.

Decades later, the government of the city had fallen, replaced by a council of citizens deemed to be the wisest by their fellows. Among them were three of the Psychics, who immediately began campaigning for the names of the former demons to be cleared. They related the tales of how the pair had served and protected the city, relying on their pure hearts no matter how they were persecuted. Although, they conceded, the two would probably still hide from their eyes –a mark of respect to their masters- , they should be accorded all the respect due to the guardian spirits they had become. In a manner so different from the crowd half a century ago, their proposals were met with cheers, and calls to begin at once.

From that day, the demons were no longer known by that name, but were called the Siblings of the Eon. Two pillars were raised, on each side of where the gallows had stood, one decorated with a statue of Latias, one with one of Latios. The Siblings of the Eon were publicly welcomed to Altomare, and told that they might stay as long as they wished. Their lives became happy, tinged only with the slight sadness of losing their patrons.

However, on some days their garden would echo with disembodied children's laughter, the grass would rustle as if trapped beneath small feet, and the chimes would ring for seemingly no reason at all. On those days, the Siblings of the Eon were no longer melancholy.

**This has been requested a couple of times, so here it is. l0rdn1hilus, PikachuAndArceus, I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, and all those of you who have read but not yet dropped a line (hint, hint). Since I'm going to be letting a new story loose very soon, an update on this may take a while. Until next time.-Arcanus. **


	12. The TimeSpace War

The Time-Space War

From the very beginning, legendaries had existed in pairs, opposite and equal, balancing one another's power so that the scales would never tip and slide the universe into chaos. Ho-oh and Lugia, one soaring near the sun, the other gliding through the depths of the ocean. Groudon and Kyogre, one master of earth, the other of water. Reshiram and Zekrom, their starkly-contrasting flesh showing to the world the less visible divide between them. And Dialga and Palkia, Time and Space, Daughter and Son, Steel and Water, Indifference and Aggression.

Since they had appeared from the nothingness, their hearts had been filled with enmity and jealousy. Both held back their anger in the presence of the Original One, but seethed in silence, and their small blood-red eyes were always on one another, watching for faults and planning the next strike. In the midst of Arceus' creation, where all the newly created deities were filled with joy, the Master of Time and the Master of Space seemed akin to two Grimer in a field of newly-blossoming flowers. They bided their time, unsure, but one day their poison would spread over the beauty surrounding them, and many would die.

Once the Original One had entered Her unending sleep, the hatred between the two was no longer restrained by their respect, and what had previously existed only in furious glances and their striving to be more powerful than the other now manifested itself in insults, blows and even full battles, the other deities watching in fear or amusement. Each day, the two would sit in council with their fellow legendaries, flanks scarred, breathing heavily, staring at one another across the table, in open defiance of the rule that demanded all hostility be left at the door to the Hall of Origin, emitting soft growls, sharpening claws, and scheming for their next bout. On some days, the two dragons, if not for the laws governing them, would have fought to the death within Arceus' sacred resting place, regardless of the heresy it was to stain that temple with blood. Before long, the other legendaries gathered in secret, and concluded that their feud must be stopped. Yet they feared the twins, the firstborn of the Original One, with their universe-rending power and their unspoken authority, and any rebellion they might have held in their minds withered away as soon as the two beings stepped into the Hall, anger distorting their features.

Being the supreme gods of Sinnoh, almost every being in that land had allied itself to one side or another within a passing of the moon. Mesprit pleaded, Uxie argued, and Azelf threatened, but even the strong eventually bowed to the pressure, and joined the mindless crowd waving the banners of their chosen deity. With the bile of fear rising in their throats, the three retreated, temporarily, plunged into the dizzying, sickening remembrances of the War of Emotion and Willpower that they themselves had fought, sympathising with their elder siblings that now fought under waving colours almost identical to their own, sensing the bloodshed that would shortly spread its metallic scent over the evening air.

Sinnoh was divided in half, with the west belonging to the Master of Space and the east to the Master of Time. The impressionable Shellos that lived in each area painted themselves with the colours of their new masters, in ink that remains stained into their flesh to this day. The only neutral territory that remained to the peace-loving citizens was Mount Coronet, where the pacifists and undecided retreated into its warren of twisting caves, trusting to the supplies of food they had stockpiled to sustain them until the fighting ceased. Reports of these reached the ears of the two celestial beings, but they were dismissed, schemes of their soldiers hounding the cowards from their hole stored away for when the greater enemy was conquered. Their attention was focused solely on the tactical minutiae of each battle, the loss or gain of a league of land, the handful of straggling soldiers that arrived each day to swell the ranks of their supporters. For them, nothing existed beyond the campaign. From the shadows, the Lake Guardians watched, knowing that soon their childish spat would become a full war.

As often as the Custodian of Omniscience had prayed that her predictions of this or that bloody future were false, still they would prove true to torment the kind natures of the three beings. Again, fate played its games as she had speculated, and Sinnoh dissolved into warfare. The larger combat of brother against sister was mirrored in the friends that fought friends, the husbands that fought wives, the parents that fought children all the way along the front line that stretched for miles. Not even the veil of night could put off the combat, for even when the exhausted day-dwellers retreated to their respective encampments, they were at once replaced by the nocturnal Pokémon, eyes glowing red through the blackness, and their night-loving human counterparts, knives sheathed to avoid shining in the moonlight. Not a second passed that was not pierced with battle cries. The war raged on without a moment of ceasefire, with years spent in the recapture or loss of a single mile, seeming as if it would never end.

As Sinnoh fell deeper and deeper into the abyss of bloodshed, the other nations gathered, ready to strike whilst the guarding legendaries were stymied in war, for the region was rich in timber, metal and stone, materials that all valued. The legendaries did what they must and made their plans, electing to protect their homelands' interests above the future of Sinnoh. The few who remained peaceful grew increasingly desperate, with their only refuge the tunnels of the hidden, neutral population, and the Hall of Origin. Heatran added her fiery rage to the army of Dialga; Darkrai brought nightmares upon his enemies in the forces of Palkia; even Shaymin the Flower-Bringer succumbed to his fear and unleashed his razor-edged leaves beneath the banner of the Master of Space. Finally, only the ever-faithful Lake Guardians and Cresselia, Bearer of Happiness, took the side of the Original One. Hungry, frozen, concealing themselves in the icy wastes in the north to avoid bringing the wrath of the warring legendaries on those ordinary humans and Pokémon hiding in Mount Coronet, they watched their supplies dwindle and the hope of victory slowly slide from their grasp, as the wind howled furiously outside their shelter.

Finally, the Goddess of Knowledge, in the blackest of despair, hatched a scheme. Together, their minds were strong enough to transfer the consciousness of Dialga into the body of Palkia, and perform the opposite for her brother. They gathered on the field of battle, ready to give their lives in the attempt. For a brief moment, it seemed as if they had succeeded; the two looked about themselves, with puzzled countenances. However, as soon as their blood-coloured eyes found the armies surrounding them, greedy smiles spread across their jaws, and they fell on them, bringing claws and fangs down on those that believed they were serving their god. The slaughter lasted until the Moon-Queen wept from the horror, breaking the spell and returning the minds of the two beasts to their original hosts. They fled from the massacre with their hearts pounding furiously, as the yells of rage and triumph pursued them from the forever-cursed place.

Huddled in their cave, the four lone rebels fell silent, overwhelmed by the knowledge that they were destined to lose. Finally, Uxie broke the silence, telling her fellows; "It is futile. We can never be victorious."

As she spoke, the clouds smothering the sky turned to deepest night, and the ground shook furiously. In every corner of Sinnoh, people and Pokémon paused in their battles or daily work to glance around in fear and kneel in prayer to their deities. A pair of gargantuan eyes, like pools of fire cutting through the darkness, shone in the distance, and beneath them a sharp-fanged mouth opened and declared:

"WHEN THE WISEST OF US LOSES ALL HOPE OF VICTORY, I WILL ANSWER THE CALL."

Concealing her trembling body, Uxie demanded to know who spoke to them with such impunity.

"I HAVE MANY NAMES. LORD OF THE DEAD. HAUNTER OF SHADOWS. MASTER OF PERVERSITY. STRANGE ONE. THE ABANDONED. THE BANISHED. WHEN SINNOH IS BROUGHT TO ITS KNEES, I AWAKE. I AM GIRATINA, AND I ANSWER THE CALL!"

The Custodian met the being's stare with her own closed eyelids, and answered; "Then defend us."

Giratina gave a wild shriek of triumph, shot from the darkness with the force of a striking Gallade, and became a gleaming red-and-gold meteor streaking through the darkened sky. The four watched him leave, still shaking from the encounter, and wondered what they had unleashed.

As the fighting raged on, the air filled with the enraged cries of the warring legendaries, the combatants became aware of something speeding towards them. At first, they dismissed it, and confined their attentions to the enemies before them. However, as the creature drew closer and the wind carried its insane laughter towards them, they halted, dropping their guard to stare. Even Dialga and Palkia, perpetually locked in combat, sheathed their claws, and felt distant memories stir in their minds, whispering of a dark thing banished to the farthest corners of the universe, powerful enough to destroy them both, sadistic, bloodthirsty, and ever-hungry.

Giratina's metallic body rent the joined armies, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. A devilish smile on his face, he wrapped its smoke-like tendrils around its siblings, looking down upon them with amusement as they suffocated, begging for mercy. The scars that patterned their sides increased rapidly in number as the Haunter of Shadows' talons ripped the sides of the favoured children open, delighting in the ichor that now painted his flesh. As he worked, the Abandoned laughed, long and loud, greeting his siblings' screams with equally loud mirth. For Dialga, ruler of Time, it seemed as if the torture stretched on for all eternity, the control of her natural element slipping beyond her grasp; for Palkia, the deity of Space, the gaping wounds seemed deeper than any of those he had made in the fabric of the Universe. Again and again, they begged to submit, to be freed and allowed to make peace with one another, as their pleas were drowned out by their brother's cries of happiness.

When Giratina finally tired of his toys, his insubstantial limbs retracting and dropping his siblings to the ground as easily as if they had been dolls that lost favour with an easily bored child, he stood aside and bowed to the watching Uxie, who stood aghast at the damage that had been wrought. Holding back her outrage, she floated over to the vanquished dragons, and asked if they were willing to agree to a treaty. Too weak to even speak, the two nodded, slipping into the welcome oblivion of unconsciousness.

The two sides of Sinnoh were united once more, and vowed never to be separated. The Shellos that had painted themselves in the war colours of their gods were condemned to bear them for all eternity as penance, and their descendants were likewise cursed. Dialga and Palkia agreed to be imprisoned in two separate dimensions, where they could only be summoned by the combined power of the Lake Guardians or a pure-hearted being bearing the orbs sacred to them. As a lasting monument to the treaty, a statue was erected in what would become the city of Eterna, cunningly sculpted so that one could never tell which one of the celestial siblings it most resembled. Below it were engraved the words of those who had remained in hiding yet never lost their love for the Masters of Space and Time. A family of stonemasons and the Rhyperior that travelled along with them treated the plate with their secret methods to ensure that the prayers written there would never fade.

Although Giratina had been instrumental in ending the war, the methods with which it had done so were deemed unforgivable. At the beginning of time, the birth of Giratina had brought about the creation of another universe, equal and opposite to our own, twisted and strange in a way befitting of the Master of Perversity. Now, it served its purpose; it became his home and prison. Utterly impotent, incapable of breaking through, he could only watch our world silently, hoping for the day when the heavens would be torn open and he would be released.

Many have now forgotten that Time and Space ever came together on the battlefield, and with the manifestations of Emotion, Willpower and Knowledge in hiding, it seems unlikely that they will ever do so again. However, whenever you should pass by a stream and see a Shellos of whatever colour swimming happily, or visit Eterna and see the gargantuan statue hung with flowers and lanterns for yet another festival, remember those who perished.

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I'm currently taking requests, so if there's an idea that takes your fancy, feel free to review and suggest it. Or just review. Either would be nice.- Arcanus


	13. The Travelling Jester

The Travelling Jester

In the deep countryside of Johto, there lay a small village much like any other. Its buildings were simply made, constructed from plain wood and straw, its inhabitants few, never numbering more than two dozen, and its sole features of interest were the two shrines to Lugia and Ho-oh it possessed. These had been built by the grateful villagers at its founding, as thanks to the deities who had protected them, and carefully preserved through the generations. They were constantly maintained by the devout inhabitants, and each day at least one would leave a gift for the gods on each- a cluster of ripe Pecha Berries, a delicate carving, a beaker of the first wine from the vineyards. Because of this, the two deities were ever watchful over the village, favouring them with good weather and excellent harvests, and regarding them as a paragon of human and Pokémon loyalty.

However, one day, one of the villagers, a young boy who had not yet come of age, ran carelessly through the streets and, eyes elsewhere, rammed into the shrine dedicated to Ho-oh. It toppled, scattering the offerings across the mud, as the carved figure of the Guardian of the Rainbow smashed into a hundred splinters and the child watched, utterly horrified.

Later that day, the deity himself soared above the region, and thought of the small settlement that worshipped him with such dedication. Perhaps, flying down to examine their progress, he would replace his wide-spreading sunset-coloured wings with the guise of an ordinary bird Pokémon, investigate their doings, and bestow the gift of a new grove of fruit trees. The Fiery One let out a caw of pleasure, the wind stripping away his feathers to reveal the shape of an elegant Pidgeot, and dived towards the golden fields.

The disguised Ho-oh landed, drank from the pool in the central square, then wandered between the buildings, nodding to the other flying Pokémon that chirped in greeting as he passed. He studied the construction of a new house for a few minutes, observed the workers in the fields panting in the fierce midday heat, and smiled as a few turned to throw a handful of oats in his direction. Regally, he perched upon the roof of the tallest building, and surveyed all about him. One more observation was yet to be made, but he was sure that his faithful followers would not disappoint him. He flew over the shrine, and halted in mid-air, horrified at the sight. Gazing over the shattered remains, Ho-oh was certain that this could be no accidental vandalism. He assumed his own form, drawing gasps from the villagers around him, who swiftly fell to their knees and bowed before him. Piercing them with a vicious glare, he demanded to know which enemy was responsible. None could tell him. The red flames of fury surged in his eyes, and he sped into the sky, ordering them to find the culprit by the following midnight, or face his wrath being turned on them.

The Guardian of the Rainbow returned at the appointed time, and was greeted by blank faces and vacant stares, whilst the guilty child lay curled beneath the sacks of food in the store-rooms. He returned the following night, and found the same, and the night after that, until finally he grew infuriated with the villagers' silence. Rising to blot out the moon, he laid a terrible curse on them; until the criminal was given up, they would be plagued with disease. Disfigurement, starvation, and death would fill their days until they confessed. With one final look at the people he had treasured, he turned and glided towards the Tin Tower to roost.

As the legendary had promised, from that day forth the plague stalked their streets. Medicines were useless, spells ineffective, and even fleeing from the village could do nothing, for the curse pursued them relentlessly whether they concealed themselves far into forests or in the great stone cities. Before long, many of the original inhabitants had passed away, and the disease was spreading, the towns beyond beginning to wake to agonised cries and distorted, scar-patterned faces. Ho-oh watched, satisfied, from the heights of his tower, surrounded by kimono-swathed attendants, knowing that soon the curse would hold the entire region in its grasp. A brief tremor of grief passed through him, and he shuddered, but continued to watch, impassive; for dishonouring a deity would inevitably, whether in minutes or years, lead to death.

A decade passed. The plight of Johto attracted pity from many a legendary, and, finally, a delegation of the most compassionate went to Ho-oh and begged him to lift the curse. The Fiery One refused, turning away and insisting that, should they be able to find a single virtuous descendant of the original villagers, he would banish the disease from their shores in an instant. Dejected, they left, going their separate paths and vowing to fulfil Ho-oh's demand, regardless of what stood in their way.

Mew descended to the streets of Ecruteak and roamed aimlessly, invisible to mortal eyes. Despondent, filled with the thought of her impossible task, she drew closer to the city's centre, and her ears pricked. Floating through the still air came bright, joyful music, the brass laughter of bells and cymbals in place of the warnings the diseased cried as they walked the streets. Curious, the Life-Bringer glided closer, and found herself in a small park, where trees had shaded Pokémon and human alike on hot summer days in the years before the disease, and grass that had previously been lush and verdant was overrun with creeping weeds. In the centre, a great oak spread its leaf-clad limbs over a small army of the sick, seated cross-legged or sprawled across the ground, and, at their centre, a lone dancing man, dressed in colours of flame, and three Pokémon.

His hands moved quickly to capture the blurring spheres of brightness, then toss them back into the air, seeming to miss for a heartbeat, then swiftly catching them to spur them on in their dance. His skill was extraordinary, and yet not his greatest oddity: he smiled. In the time of Johto's deepest misery, when life became a race to put off the plague for one more day, then a nightmare of destroyed faces, pain and fading mind, before the slow death crept up and gave its sluggish release, this one, isolated human still found joy in his whirling toys. His Pokémon were infected with his enthusiasm, the Cyndaquil shaking a small string of gleaming bells, the Politoed clashing its cymbals together, the Togetic cavorting around the grassy circle and calling for the watching Pokémon to dance. Even the audience, scarred, diseased, bereft of all hope, felt something stir, and their rotting mouths curved into shapes that had been absent for months, mirroring the dancing man's expression. Entranced, Mew took the form of a young girl, robed in pink, and crossed the grass to stand beside the spectacle, marvelling.

After what seemed like mere instants, although the sun was sinking low in the sky, the performance finished. The dancer bowed deeply to the audience, who contemplated handing over the few bronze coins in their ragged clothing, but knew that an existence free from the illness was a far better payment. Slowly, with rueful glances back at the troupe, they shuffled away, to lie listless in the streets or find shelter in the gutted remnants of buildings. Still with a grin covering his face, the man began to bundle away his equipment in a thick, scarlet-coloured cloth, whilst his partners sprawled beneath the tree and conversed in their own language. Little distinguished this human and his friends from any other, and yet the Ancestor felt drawn to him. Still in human form, the goddess approached.

"Your performance was beautiful."

Surprised, the jester caught sight of her and bowed briefly. "Thank you."

"Where were you born, sir?"

"An odd question, lady."

"I am merely curious."

The jester sighed. "I hail from the cursed village. It was fortunate that my parents fled as soon as the illness began to spread. Now, I travel, and perform my tricks. It seems to offer the sick some small comfort."

Padding towards him, Mew allowed her disguise to fade, revealing the true shape of the kindly legendary. The jester gasped, and fell to his knees. "Then perhaps you could be of assistance."

Seated beneath the spreading oak, the man and his Pokémon listened with rapt attention to the Life-Bringer's words. As she spoke, she unfurled a weathered, yellowing scroll, each end decorated with a perfectly made figure of the wrathful Guardian of the Rainbow. "Ho-oh said that, should I find one virtuous descendant of Janomura, I should consult this text. He demands that, to prove yourself to be truly good, you must undertake his ten challenges. They may be difficult, and you must strive, but take heart. You have justice, and a legendary, on your side."

The following morning, when the sun rose red over the ceramic-tiles roofs of Ecruteak, Ho-oh's five loyal shrine maidens walked out to meet the jester. Each, dressed immaculately in crimson kimono with obi the colour of fresh spring leaves and hair adorned with ears of corn, was followed by a single Pokémon, which marched neatly behind them, face inscrutable. On the far-off Tin Tower, the brooding legendary himself perched, following his servants and divine opponent with impossibly sharp eyes.

The five priestesses sank into deep bows at the sight of the Life-Bringer, and gave peremptory nods in the direction of the rapidly paling jester. "Lord Ho-oh, Master of the Skies, accepts your challenge. In his stead, we will carry out his tasks and test you. If you require no more time, we will begin."

Pokémon and human exchanged glances, and turned to face the enemy with a defiant look.

The first walked forwards, and called her Vaporeon to her side. From her obi she removed a single candle, of the kind that could be seen burning in any temple in the land. On the heights of his tower, the Guardian of the Rainbow stirred, and loosed a brief jet of flame towards the tiny wick. The candle caught light and began to burn, and as it did it divided into a thousand more, the small fires edged with a multitude of strange colours, and floated into the air. The water-dwelling Pokémon leapt to the centre of the field. "Please put them out."

As soon as the Vaporeon's tail scythed through a candle, it blinked, shimmered, and disappeared to hover beside the shrine maiden. Another one grew into existence to replace it. Aghast, the jester commanded his Politoed to begin extinguishing, but, alas, the agility which had been trained into its opponent over the years was sadly lacking in the body of a simple entertainer's companion, and even its greatest jumps could not reach the prize. Behind the dejected pair, Mew closed her eyes and called to the earth, imbuing it with new life and vigour. Suddenly, the Politoed found himself soaring into the air. When he landed once more, the ground had become immensely soft and springy, easily flinging the light Pokémon around as if they weighed little more than dust. His opponent, who had seemed so skilled, found himself tossed around like a juggler's ball, perfectly calculated jumps wildly overpowered, whereas the Politoed, encouraged by the shouts of his partner, disposed of candles three or four at a time. By the end, the flames floating by the jester numbered hundreds or more, whilst Ho-oh's servant bowed her head, humiliated.

That was not the last challenge the jester and his Pokémon would face that day, but each time Ho-oh issued a task the Life-Bringer wrought her magic to bring it to a victory for her champion. When the wrathful legendary demanded that the Pokémon race by jumping across wide pits of burning magma, the defiant Mew turned them into simple wooden obstacles. When Cyndaquil raced the far faster Jolteon, she gave the jester's shouts the power to speed his friend on his way. When Togetic was ordered to destroy seemingly unscratchable stones, she gave her small wings the power to break through diamond. By the time that dusk had begun to slide across the sky, the jester's Pokémon stood victorious, and Ho-oh's servants were shamed by a disastrous loss.

Defeated, the Guardian of the Rainbow let out a heaven-rending cry of rage and tossed a glass phial filled with a swirling emerald liquid to the juggler's waiting hands. "So, you have proved yourself worthy. Take this and spread word of the cure, if you can. Merely being in contact with this medicine will be enough to save most; those that cannot should drink from it. A drop should be sufficient. Now go. The victory may be yours this time, but provoking the anger of a legendary is never wise." So saying, Ho-oh departed, still unable to accept the prospect of forgiveness, eyes fixed firmly on the tower's gilded heights, with his followers trooping behind him in a neat formation.

The jester took the celestial being's words to heart, and began to travel. Wherever he went, the sacred medicine travelled with him, tucked deep into a fold of clothing, and his Pokémon walked by his side. When they found themselves in towns or cities, they would make their way to a quiet park or shaded square, and re-enact the ten great trials of Ho-oh. The ill would watch the Pokémon race, somersault, and throw, and, unseen to them, the precious substance worked its magic on their bodies, healing sores, repairing organs, purging every trace of the sickness from their veins. Eventually, news travelled, and the uncleansed towns began to eagerly anticipate the arrival of the jester whose spellbinding acts performed miracles. Even when the whole of Johto had broken the shackles of disease, the ten games remained famous. Each year, the city of Goldenrod would host a contest open to every Pokémon in the region, held in a great stone stadium. The winners received medals, gifts, and everlasting glory, and even today the catacombs beneath the field of competition still hold delicately decorated scrolls that show the story of a jester, his friends, and a goddess.

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**BlackLightconvicted- Wow. Thank you. **

**CoffeeIncluded- Thank you! **

**Before the lynch mobs start forming, let me take this chance to apologise about the ludicrously late update. I had exams, homework, my Internet broke, I was distracted by my shiny new copy of Pokémon Black… the list goes on. Anyhow, the new chapter is finally up, so I hope you enjoyed it. Requests are still open, so if there's any particular myth you'd like to see done that doesn't involve any man-made Pokémon (because I have plans for them), please tell me. Hopefully, it shouldn't be as late. **

**Thanks to Pikachu127, WildCroconaw, CoffeeIncluded and BlackLightconvicted (sorry, I can't add punctuation otherwise the Document Manager deletes it for some strange reason) for favouriting/reviewing, as well as everyone that is still reading this despite my lack of any logical update system. **

**Lynch mobs, continue. - Arcanus**


	14. Divided Land, Divided Heart

Divided Land, Divided Heart

At the beginning of time, when Groudon, master of land, breathed upon the churning oceans and saw still earth rise from beneath them, the great continents were made. Newly formed, they lay there, blooming with the life Shaymin's and Mew's blessings had brought, and were pulled to their rightful places on the golden ropes held in Regigigas' powerful grip. Two were placed close together, as close as brother and sister, husband and wife, trainer and Pokémon, joined by a mountainous land-bridge so that their bond would never be forgotten, and they came to be called Kanto and Johto. Further to the south, where the warmth of the sun could reach it, was the land that would one day be known as Hoenn, covered in humid rainforests and burning desert, and, north of that, its temperate counterpart Sinnoh, with its snows and deep woodlands. At a respectful distance from the central four, the Colossal One placed the three lands where nature and civilisation would intertwine closer than any, and where the friendship of Pokémon was fleeting and ephemeral, yet no less loyal. Beside it lay an immense desert land, with only a small area of lush vegetation to suggest that life could ever survive there. Small chains of islands, like a scattering of stone beads, were placed beside the larger lands, to develop and thrive in their turn.

Yet there was another land, green and tan against the sapphire sea, that lay far away from the great countries that those present at the birth of the universe would come to regard as home. A triplicate claw of earth, it was quiet, bereft of deities, intriguing and anomalous. However, the legendaries knew not to question the Original One's wisdom, turned their backs on the strange new land, and returned to the regions to which they belonged.

Equally perplexing were those Pokémon, like the new country, that seemed to have no place in the world that Arceus had brought into being. Born neither of the sky, sea, or land, they drifted beyond the planet's reaches, frozen in time, dusted with a layer of ice from the extreme cold, dulled eyes staring down at the world unblinking. Although some, like the Clefairy and their more powerful forms, lived happy lives, creating whole cultures and civilisations on the barren surfaces of those otherworldly places, others remained in never-ending sleep, concealed beneath a thick armour of stone and rime, seemingly without purpose or consciousness. However, they were accepted as part of the will of the Original One, and continued to exist in their own manner.

Years passed, and the mysterious continent and the Pokémon of the stars were forgotten, only half-remembered in legends and children's tales. Meanwhile, the land itself was flourishing. Its forests grew, its cities spread across the earth, its lakes were deep and full of aquatic Pokémon, its craftsmanship beautiful and unique, and its inhabitants as diverse and varied as those in any other region. Some dwelled under the desert empire, working stone or metal or serving at the court of the Great Castle. Some resided in the town dedicated to the God of Plenty, tending the fields that grew every year by his blessing. Some lived in the north-east of the country, in a small village bounded by a river and woodland, separated from living contact, and, though they knew it not, would soon be visited by a being who had been likewise alone, who would disrupt the delicate balance of life there, and who would change the face of the country that was home to them beyond all recognition.

One night, as the moon rose into the ink-stained sky, an unnaturally bright star fell to earth, burying itself deep within the soil behind the village. In its heart was a creature that was utterly alien to the region; a great dragon-like monster with flesh of deep grey and ice-blue, that had known only the chill of deep space, the endless tedium of silently revolving planets, suspended between life and death, sleep and wakefulness, and hungry. Uneven, savage fangs lined the inside of its gaping maw. A single pallid eyelid drew back, revealing a dulled yellow eye, and a deep growl reverberated from its throat.

In the day, when the warm spring air enclosed the town, the dragon was powerless, forced to retreat to the safety of its meteor. However, now, at night, when the air was sufficiently cold for it to come forth from its home, it was free to roam and to slake its hunger.

It came, like a shrieking whirlwind of chaos and teeth and talons, through the darkness, wrenching the innocent from the streets, rending through stone, brick, flesh and bone, spreading terror wherever it beat its wings. When the heavens began to turn red, mirroring the liquid that the streets of the town now ran with, the dragon let out a brief cry and flew away, able to feast on its kill in peace within the meteorite. Slowly, trembling with fear, the townspeople emerged, utterly bewildered by this demon which, like the plagues spoken of in their oldest legends, had appeared seemingly from nothing and torn their lives apart in a matter of instants. Silent, knowing that no words could do justice to their loss and sorrow, they tried to rebuild. Silent, they cleared away the piled rubble that had once been part of their home. Silent, they took the remnants of the few valuable objects they had possessed from the ruins, wrapping them carefully in cloth. Silent, they prayed for the taken lives in the village shrine, having no bodies to consecrate.

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For all their soundless hopes and prayers, the dragon returned the next night, and the next, and the next, and numbers dwindled swiftly. Humans and Pokémon alike were pulled from their places and carried to the gargantuan rock where it dwelled, which no living being dared approach. Nevertheless, the citizens resisted. During the days, when the creature had been forced back into its hiding place, they worked on the construction of an immense wall, soaring higher than even the reach of the monster's flight, and strengthened with stone and metal so that nothing could penetrate it. Yet every night their efforts were interrupted by the arrival of the dragon, which arbitrarily rent their labours apart as often as it ignored them. Some suggested luring the creature with its favourite prey, but there were none in the town courageous enough to become the bait. Desperation set in, and, finally, the only solution left was to seek the help of those stronger than them, whether in fervent prayers to the gods or through the pleas for help that adorned every available surface close to the town, with a promise of gold in large, inviting characters.

Eventually, the two that would answer the call chanced to pass through the nearby forest. Twin brothers, born a fraction of a heartbeat apart, both mercenaries by trade. The younger dressed entirely in black, the elder in white. The older was calm, clear-headed and pragmatic by nature; the younger was passionate, energetic, and favoured the causes that he believed to be justified. Catching sight of the thin sheets fluttering in the wind, the two paused. The younger's attention was held by the breathless, colourful description of the dragon, the word of its terrorisation of the town, the glory its death promised; the elder studied the reward offered in silence, weighing it with the dangers of fighting the otherworldly creature. Finally, they turned to one another, and without a single word spoken they turned and strode towards the town.

The brother in black stood in the central expanse of earth, slicing and thrusting his stave through the air with an expression of fierce concentration, movements quick and practised. His sibling knelt a little apart from the town, busying himself with a tangle of ropes and metal, casting odd glances at the sinking afternoon sun. A few of the townspeople ventured close to both travellers to offer them refreshment, though most merely continued to watch, not daring to hope, after so many months of fear and violence, that any being could destroy the monster that haunted their nights. As the heavens reddened, and the inhabitants began to retreat to their homes, fearful of breaking the curfew that their leaders had imposed to protect them from the beast, the brothers straightened, exchanged meaningful looks, and disappeared towards the dragon's lair.

The elder, holding a complexity of lines and knots carefully in his hands, stopped a few dozen feet from the meteor, whilst his brother continued, holding the stave now tipped with two gleaming blades. They stood in position, one upright, scanning the yawning black mouth of the cave without emotion, one tensed, fighting the rising battle frenzy, back pressed to the alien rock. They waited.

Yellow eyes blinked into existence inside the dark; an earth-shaking growl issued from an unseen throat.

The sound of rapid, enormous footsteps moved closer; claws were unsheathed, and slid across the stone floor.

Its roar rent the air, and the dragon leapt forth into the world.

Swifter than a Serperior darting out to snatch its prey, the black-clad brother bounded onto the creature's back, plunging the cutting edge deep into its flesh. It screamed in agony and rage, and strained ahead, desperately trying to flee the pain of the wounds which the younger brother adorned its spine and wings. Maddened with the agony, it flew blindly towards the elder brother. Coolly, judging its motion with an expert eye, the elder unfurled the product of his hard work- a net, stronger and tighter than any before, and its edges lined with the strange jewels found in quarries near volcanoes. As the monster flew below, cries echoing through the trees, he dropped it. The trap tangled itself inextricably around the dragon's body, obscured its vision, and brought it crashing to the ground.

With the ring of flame-hearted jewels girding its body and pressing into its skin, a dozen or more of an object that would cause even the strongest of Pokémon extreme agony to hold just one, the monster was helpless, and could do nothing more than stagger along, obediently following its captors, lest it again feel the tempered metal of the younger brother's weapon. When it was led into the centre of the village, the people descended upon it like Lampent on those on the brink of death. Even the smallest children, the just-born kits and cubs, tore at it with their hands, and begged in high pure voices for its blood. The younger brother, driven on by the shouts, held a naked blade to the creature's throat. Its half-closed eyes watched him with a mixture of terror and relief. However, just as he raised the stave to deliver the final stroke, his brother's hand stayed it.

The black-clad brother whirled, and held the weapon to his sibling's chest, demanding to know his motive, accusing him of sympathising with the monster. His elder pushed it aside, and reminded him of the money they could earn, the glory that would be theirs, if the terror of Lacunosa became their pet. Turning to the villagers, the white-clad sibling volunteered to forego all payment, if only they would let them take the dragon alive. The younger brother, seeing the wisdom in his words, let the stave hang loose at his side.

* * *

They were chased from the town with curses and cast stones, told never to return. Yet the creature was now in their possession, padding submissively wherever the speedy chastisement of the now harmless staff directed it. They travelled south, avoiding settlements, moving at night if at all possible and sleeping in the depths of caves. The creature, accustomed to the salt warmth of living flesh, subsisted on the tasteless grasses and leaves that the brothers saw fit to give it; hunger never failed to dull its tongue. After many nights of furtive movement, they reached the coast and found an old man, who was quickly silenced by the promise of gold, to take them and the creature out to sea. They made their home on an island, uninhabited save for a handful of forest Pokémon, but visited occasionally by a trader's boat. With great relief- for they had not slept well for more than a month- they found shelter within the forest, threw themselves to the ground, and unburdened themselves to Cresselia.

They lived there for more than a year, taming the creature. It learned to respond to their commands quickly, and the two were surprised to find an intelligence not unlike their own beneath the scales. Though it remained mistrustful, it became more willing to recognise them as masters, and happily accepted the berries and fish they brought to it. The net it had been enclosed in dwindled to half its size, then became a chain, then a simple anklet. When six months had passed, the black-clad brother began to train it. The dragon displayed an ability in battle near-surpassing its mental agility, and was glad of the exercise that their sessions brought. Their skills progressed rapidly, and the victor was often decided seemingly at random, so closely were they matched. During the days, when the creature rested in the cave, the white-clad brother sat by it, teaching it of tactics, military strategy, and human languages. Very soon, the hated bonds with their torture-filled orbs had been thrown into the ocean, and the creature became almost an equal, the violence and all-encompassing anger of its previous life left far in the past.

It was a cool autumn night, when the dragon lay sprawled contentedly across the grass, when the older brother suggested that they return, and use it in the way that they had first intended, all that time ago. Temper flaring, the younger leapt to his feet, and cried that he refused to allow the creature –a creature which had become almost one of them, the third sibling they had never had- to be a festival attraction, to be stared and laughed at by the scum of the earth. Instinctively, one hand fell towards his staff.

The white-clad brother silenced him with a glance, and replied calmly that letting the creature become a common freak was not his intent. It was powerful, fast, cunning- possibly the greatest fighter the land of Unova would ever know. Their resources, though they might last another month, were running dangerously low, and the only way to completely ensure that they did not starve was to return to their original profession, and begin earning once more. The dragon was more than capable of assisting them; its help would easily outweigh any costs.

The younger brother was quiet for a time, and then responded: "Your idea is good, but on too small a scale. Why settle for the hard slog of mercenary life, when we could have Unova?"

He became animated, outspoken, pacing around the clearing. For most of their lives, they had been powerless in the grand scheme of things, solely able to take control through fighting, whilst the weak, slothful feudal lords of the land had mastery over life and death in their small kingdoms. Unova had been divided too long; with the dragon, they could bring it together beneath one banner and reshape it in their own image. They could eliminate injustice, conflict, cruelty. The white-clad brother, ordinarily logical before all else, felt temptation stir within him. He looked over to where the creature lay, powerful muscles now relaxed in sleep, and knew that he would have to succumb.

They returned to the mainland and began travelling, restricting their movements to night purely for the dragon's comfort. Much training had left it able to bear the harsh light of day, though uncomfortably so. Caring not whether they were seen, word of the two brothers in black and white clothing and the creature that followed them spread quickly, and they often found their paths through towns and villages lined by dozens of watching people, trembling and shrinking back as they passed. Often, inns were closed days before they reached them, yet there was almost always one establishment prepared to accept their money, and, failing that, remember the dagger-like claws that were casually unsheathed behind the two brothers. In this manner, they proceeded towards the court of the Desert Empire.

After two days battling the harsh winds and sands of that extreme place, the brothers and the dragon lifted their eyes to see the soaring outline of the great castle on the horizon. Progressing through the lively market, where traders argued loudly over brightly-coloured spices and powders, gleaming silver jewellery was arrayed neatly on red cloth, and the shouted bids of a slave auction echoed above the street musicians' melodies, they attracted odd glances, but little more than that. This was, after all, Taliza, the greatest city in the world, and tributes for the Emperor could often be shocking in magnitude and invention. Perhaps the beast that walked behind the two young men was an oversized Druddigon cunningly costumed, or some strange monster from foreign lands. Shrugging, they turned away.

Reaching the castle gates, they were stopped by two hooded warriors, both dressed in the Emperor's purple-and-silver livery. The taller demanded to know their purpose, but the white-clad brother replied simply that they came with a gift, and a message, for the castle's master. Presently, after a whispered discussion and many nervous looks at the beast, the guards bowed, and gave the two permission to enter. Without a flinch, they walked into the heart of the Imperial Court.

Beyond the gate was a wide, cool courtyard, with a fountain playing at the centre and a gilded marble throne rising high above the ground towards the rear. Courtiers, nobles, and concubines were dotted across the stone floor, laughing idly, whilst the fumes of dried Pomeg flowers –guaranteed to plunge any human into wonderful, powerful dreams- spiralled lazily upwards. Lounging across the throne, bead-like eyes watching the courtyard idly, was the Emperor, robed in murex-dyed finery glittering with delicate metallic-coloured embroidery and a multitude of ornaments, the shining crown upon his head leaving no doubt as to his royal power. Iron chains led from the arms of the throne to two bound, kneeling Conkeldurr, both bearing the intricate brand of the Noble House of Taliza. Likewise marked were the Maractus that wove through the courtyard, carrying trays of sweets and drink, and the troupe of Darumaka that danced before a group of bored watchers, restraining themselves from flinching at the whip-cracks that came their way.

The Emperor stared down at the brothers and the beast that followed them, and asked what business they had with him. Saying nothing, the two stepped aside, and the dragon leapt.

Screams rose behind them as the Emperor was pinned to the ground, the creature lowering its head for the coup de grace, and some of the courtiers with greater presence of mind hurried to the Conkeldurr and hastily unlocked their bonds, demanding that they protect their master. Both stood, stretched, then turned to their former lords and killed them with a single blow. The Maractus threw down the glasses they held and flung needles torn from their own bodies, sharp enough to slice wood, towards the now-cowering humans. The Darumaka plunged all the attacking power in their small bodies into harming those that had, mere seconds ago, thought nothing of touching whips to their flesh, and, everywhere, moving with more agility than a dancer, was the black-clad brother, his stave little more than a blur flashing among the fleeing court members. The white-clad brother climbed onto the dragon's back –by now it clutched a broken body, dripping through the layers of fine silk with which it was swathed, between its jaws― and urged it upwards, bringing it in a fast circle around the castle. Its wide, pale wings smashed through the beautifully carved sandstone, leaving gaping holes in its walls, destroying its defensive power with a cool and calculating mind. Within a few minutes, the castle was utterly torn apart. Halting and hovering over the crumbling remains, the creature let out an earth-shaking roar, bringing cheers from the freed serving Pokémon assembled below. If they were to truly rule Unova, nothing that could aid their enemies could be left behind.

The people going about their daily lives outside might have resisted, if they had been able to; yet the Pokémon that had been servants and bodyguards for centuries were suddenly, inexplicably free, and willing to let them taste their fangs. They cowered, in the shadows of awnings and the corners of buildings, and the luckiest among them were not harmed. However, when the slaves were in the streets, finally running free from their oppressors, restraint could not be trusted to enter their minds. Many of the Talizans were left with scars that would never fade, and some joined the blazing pyre where the remnants of a delicately-embroidered purple robe could be glimpsed.

The brothers left that place with one of the outposts of their greatest potential foes obliterated, and a loyal following of former Pokémon servants and freed human slaves. Several Darmanitan volunteered to guard the remains, remaining behind in a trance-state to deter any of those that still owed allegiance to the Empire. The dragon walked beside them as usual, distracted from the burning sun by the delicious flavour in its mouth and the assembly of former slaves clamouring to give it thanks. Their work was nowhere near over, but the ranks of their army had swelled, and their victory gave them hope.

In like manner, the cleansing fire of their conquering roiled and blazed across the rest of Unova. The Sea People and their Queen fought bravely, but were nonetheless annihilated in the face of such sheer power, and the fishing grounds lay quiet and under the possession of the two brothers. The Lord of Icirrus bowed his head to the blades of the advancing army, and felt one slide quickly against his throat as a reward. The noble city of craftsmen to the east, Nacrene, fell within hours. Before long, the standard of the new army flew high above every city: black for one brother, white for the other, and a dragon silhouetted in ice-blue in the very centre, where the two coloured sides met.

They made their court in the very heart of the country, with the sea to the south, the lush forests to the east and the desert, site of their first conquest, to the north. There they built a great castle, soaring higher towards the heavens than any in that region had ever soared, with thick walls designed to resist any attack enclosing a central tower even more strongly fortified, constructed with the labour of the adoring followers that willingly went wherever the two brothers and their friend did. The most loyal were appointed to positions of great power within the court, becoming dukes, generals, marquises, but even the most insignificant of allies were welcome in that place. Any human or Pokémon, if in need, could come there and request help, and the brothers strived to ensure that their pleas were obeyed. Justice was ever their watchword, and they fought day and night, united like the one being that had split into two at their conception. Constantly at their side was the creature, overjoyed to have friendship, a purpose, a way to direct its rage that not only satisfied its own bloodlust but fulfilled its partners' cause. Happiness stirred its heart, sweeping away all confusion, unifying the mess of random anger and impulse into a single desire. It wanted nothing more than to see Unova rise, and was willing to do anything to ensure this happy future was realised.

Unova grew, more than any of the trio could have hoped. With no petty feuds between the small kingdoms that were now absorbed into the whole, fewer died. Medicine was improved, technology advanced, and the now-united army was more powerful than ever. Conflict, hatred and grudges seemed to have vanished entirely. The three rulers, although ruthless towards any being, human or Pokémon, that went against their vision for a perfect world, were benevolent and kind towards their subjects. It was flawless and idyllic, a heaven brought into the low, earthly world.

However, the business of governing Utopia is never black-and-white.

* * *

One evening, in the private council chamber looking out over the quietly rippling sea to the south, the brothers fought. Rumour whispers that the younger brother had been in favour of destroying the records that told the story of Unova, thus removing all the evidence of the atrocities that had been carried out in the name of their conquest. Being good-hearted, he believed that the undermining of their reign would destroy all that they had done for the region, depriving thousands that lived there of the chance for happiness. The elder brother insisted that truth should never be concealed, and refused to allow it. As they fought, the dragon looked on, helpless, distraught, letting out a cry of fear when the younger brother snarled that they had best take their combat outside.

Before the castle, on the wide beach before the now turbulent ocean, they chose their weapons. The black-clad brother kept his stave, with both gleaming blades now attached, whereas the elder chose an intricately worked cane that had the power of casting fire. They stood still for a fraction of a heartbeat; then, faster than any ordinary eye could decipher, they were at each other's throats. As the first brief spurts of blood left their bodies, the dragon screamed, and divided.

Torn apart by the sheer pain of watching those it loved most fight to the death, it became two beings, each with a colouring mirroring the attire of the brother it was allied to. The younger brother's guardian, a great black beast with hungry red eyes and lightning crackling from her wings, flew before him, driving his older sibling back, but not before the enormous white dragon, irises a cool, heartless blue, leapt into the attack's path, shielding the human with his flank. A thousand leagues away, the Original One stirred in Her sleep. The plans that She had set into motion long ago had finally come to fruition; Reshiram, Lord of Yang, and Zekrom, Lady of Yin, had been born.

Glaring at each other from behind their new defenders, the brothers declared war. They left the castle from which they had ruled the region, to set up base camp in other areas. The dragons followed them, leaving the corpse which had once held them both lying on the sand, and their followers, confused and divided, went afterwards. Even before they had reached their separate strongholds, thus declaring allegiance to only one of their original saviours, death touched the hurrying crowd pouring from the castle's drawbridge. Comrades had become enemies, and, even if they no longer knew who to trust or what to believe in, they knew well what to do to enemies. Tooth, claw and sword met flesh among the swarming confusion of the crowd, and the victims slumped to the ground, bodies trampled by friend as well as foe.

The white-clad brother made his camp far to the west, deep within the heart of a mountain whose paths were of such complexity that it would have taken years for an unprepared enemy to navigate. His younger sibling chose the heights of a hill far to the east, with the sea to his back, for his encampment –visible for miles around, yet ideal for launching ranged attacks towards any enemies who might attack. At the top of both was perched a dragon, watchful, ready to fight.

The war began- the most brutal that had yet ravaged Unova. Former loyalties had been entirely discarded, and all that mattered was which banner you fought beneath; the black, or the white. Neutrality was impossible. Slowly, tentatively, the two armies of opposites tore their way through Unova, perfectly matched, until, finally, the region was divided in two equal halves, furious, passionate rage and cold emotionlessness meeting precisely in the middle, as if, though the leaders themselves were far away, watching the conflict unfold with the dragons at their back, they were fighting on the front line, wrestling with nothing to come between them.

The death toll mounted, the ground threatening to burst with the corpses that filled it; little changed. Both brothers aged, grew haggard; still they refused to contemplate peace. Even the most fervent felt themselves grow sick with war, incapable of facing yet another day of the dirt, blood, exhaustion and pain. Their hate blazed as strong as it had ever done, yet the bodies in which it resided were too weak to carry out the violence that it demanded. Their leaders finally grew tired of waiting, and recognised in their followers the desire for a swift end to the conflict. They agreed to meet, alone, with only their respective dragon by their side, and fight to the death. The victor would receive unconditional surrender from their enemy: the loser would be dishonoured, eradicated from the pages of history- merely to speak their name would be a crime.

They stood before the sea, with the capital city they had raised from nothing together at their side, identical to when they had duelled the first time save for the passage of years marked on their faces. Zekrom and Reshiram stood tall and proud behind the brothers. For now, their eyes were turned to the horizon, which was reddening rapidly. Fingers danced close to weapons, thoughts raced, lightning and flame licked inside heavenly veins, but no combatant moved.

As the first shimmering sliver of sun rose over the ocean, they turned, bowed, and fought.

Perfectly matched, no more able to overpower one another than night and day, the two brothers clashed, enchanted flames meeting tempered steel, driving the other back a hair's breadth in turn then returning to the furious equilibrium in which they fought each other, unable to destroy one another, for this would have been too like conquering themselves. Likewise, the dragons battled, not caring if the entire world was obliterated- the safety of their friends, the ending of the enemy's life was all that mattered. Fire and lightning more powerful than any in nature blazed back and forth, but neither moved from their place, returning blow for blow.

The sun drew steadily overhead, then fell with equal slowness as the sky reddened, but even as the inkstain of night spread across the heavens a victor had not yet been decided. Exhaustion set in. Muscles became heavy, weapons strained towards the ground, movements listed endlessly as all four combatants began to crave sleep. Soon, one would fall, and Unova would turn wholly black or white.

At last, a moment's hesitation by the elder brother gave the younger the opportunity he needed, and his sharpened blade hovered before the exposed throat beneath him, reflecting in its steel surface the glowing moon above them. The Lord of Yang turned, and would have struck him down, but behind him his sibling brought down her powerful claws and forced him to the sand.

The younger stood, waiting. At first his hands shook with the anticipation of the act to follow, but now, faced with the sight of his brother lying defenceless before him –so like those times when they were young, and training, and virtually all their practice fights concluded with fits of helpless laughter. So reminiscent of when they had raised their most loyal friend together, gradually exchanging torture for love and teaching it that there could be something beyond the life of a feral beast. So like when they stood on the heights of their castle, masters of all they surveyed, and yet his sibling still insisted on training together. With a sudden convulsion, he recalled that the memories swarming through his head had taken place more than two decades earlier. His eyes slipped from the edge of the gleaming blade and passed over the rumpled tunic, the complex lines beginning to spiderweb across his face, the strands of grey showing amidst the hair that he remembered as cream –an exact parallel of his own.

Turning away from the prone body whose eyes were still closed, waiting for the death blow, he flung his weapon into the sea. He watched it bob up and down on the waves, then called to Reshiram to release his prey and pulled his brother to his feet. They both had much to atone for.

Unova was rebuilt in its entirety, the two brothers standing side-by-side to supervise every facet of its healing. Reconciled, the dragons joined them. Both took wives, and produced one son each: one, born to the wise scholar married to the younger, with hair the colour of grass and eyes to match; the other, born to a kind country girl joined to the elder, had hair of earth-brown and irises to match Reshiram's. Naturally, as progeny of the Twin Kings, they had the best education possible in calligraphy, languages, history, mathematics, and other everyday subjects, yet their fathers also laid bare all their beliefs before them, leaving them free to pick and choose as they saw fit. They raised them with freedom and fairness, trying, knowing that their offspring would grow up to take control of the land they had carefully nurtured since its birth as a whole nation, to ensure that conflict such as theirs would never happen between the two of them.

The Twin Kings grew old, both greying and fading gracefully into wisdom and sleepy benevolence, before eventually passing away to the mourning of the whole nation. The great dragons themselves wept at their funeral, before giving the two the honour befitting rulers so good; the black coffin was lit in an instant by an immense flash of lightning, whilst its pale twin likewise burned beneath a stream of blue flame. Not for them the cold, dark centuries in the ground. An ocean of tears was shed that day, but not even when they soaked the _mofuku_, black kimono of mourning, and ran to the ground to pool at the sobbing country's feet, they could not put out the flames and return the noble kings to life.

Their wives ruled for a handful of years before following their husbands into the next world, leaving their sons to reign over Unova. Young and inexperienced they might have been, but they tried their utmost to ensure that they ruled as well as their fathers. For a time, it seemed as though everything would be as they wished. The pink blossoms of spring were replaced by budding green leaves, which turned gold, scarlet, brown, then fell to the ground leaving the trees black as charcoal, and Unova prospered.

* * *

But time swept its inexorable winds over them, the cycle repeated, and the two were drawn again into the endless turmoil of ideals and truth, heart and head, emotion and reason. Again the armies swarmed across the land, tiny scraps of black and white fluttering above the masses of bodies crawling over the land like carrion feeders on a newly rotting corpse, again claws rose and fell whilst warriors did the same, again two proud kings stood on the battlements of their strongholds, again the carcasses piled in fleshy mountains towards the clouded heavens, again the sordid disease of war brought Unova, sickening, to its knees.

Again the dragons rose, aching for the fight and possessing even greater power: the Lord of Yang surrounded himself in an immense, coruscating inferno of pure blue fire, whilst his sibling cloaked herself in the harsh light of thunderbolts, resembling a shadow on the face of a strange new sun. They rose, and rushed together, but now the well-stitched fabric of history and repeated history began to unravel, threads of time and space and where and how flying into the distance, for the two gods, instead of fighting, reconciling, then working to undo the results of their war, found their bodies burning away under the sheer power of the other's masterful attack. They sank, aflame, to the ground, and that celestial fire, blue and gold, spread to the ground. It raced through the trees, snarling and howling, not stopping even for great bodies of water, not caring whether it met living human, Pokémon, plant, or stone. It purified the region, whilst the two deities clutched each other in their death throes, burning.

Some reached higher ground before the fire touched them, and were preserved. Among them, some say, were the two kings, and that even now their descendants live unaware in some corner of the land. As for the two gods, their bodies crumbled into grey ash, leaving only their souls trapped in twin mysterious spheres on the ground. Reverently, a passerby folded them in her robe, and travelled across the region to find resting places befitting of the two. One was left on the heights of Dragonspiral Tower, guarded by the ferocious draconian inhabitants and an army of clay soldiers brought to life by the strange power of the stone. The other was concealed in the depths of the castle the Twin Kings had destroyed at the beginning of their campaign, protected by a single Volcarona, born of the sun, whose six wings had the sole purpose of drowning thieves in seas of flame.

And now, coated in ash, awakened by the sudden heat, something stirred before the moonlit sea.

* * *

As it lay dying, watching its partners battle, the creature had frozen itself, using the power of ice that had once made it stronger than any other to preserve its body from putrefaction. It had lain in dreamless half-life for decades, whilst battle raged around it. And now, feeling the surprising pain of the flame on its body, it had woken.

Standing awkwardly, adjusting itself like a cripple, a shower of frozen crystals cascaded from its wings. Horrendous memories, blade-sharp fragments of a mirror showing the past that could never be rebuilt, tore through its mind. It felt the cold sea breeze against it and raised its yellow eyes towards the pallid orb in the sky. Vague shreds of something that might once have been pleasure fluttered inside its head. The cool of night wrapped round it, soothing the great blackened weals that the fire had left across its body. The creature tried to smile, as a broken shard of mirror reflecting happier days floated to the surface of its mind, but could manage only a sinister grimace. Slowly, it turned, and began to limp the long way home.

As it stumbled through the trees, it wept, barely knowing why, as momentary images of the two kings, of friendship, and the kingdom they had built together flashed into its head then died. Its only sure memory was the location of the meteor that had given it sanctuary. Craving its safety, the dragon walked further and further, hiding during the day half to escape the burning sun and half from an instinct that it could not recall the origin of, not ceasing for food or water, dazed by recollections of stone castles that crumbled into nothing and slicing blades and fiery spheres that bit into the skin.

Crouching in the darkest recesses of the meteor did not purge the bewildering memories from the creature, but gave it safety. It took some of the meaningless syllables whispering in its mind, did its best to string them together, and called itself Kyurem. It drank from a cold underground lake, preyed upon the hapless small creatures scuttling around the cave, and waited patiently for the day a friend might arrive at its hiding place once more, as all around it the purified Unova surged forwards into the future, leaving the poor cold creature alone and broken in the depths of the earth.

* * *

**Hypothetical cookies to anyone who notices which (human) characters appearing in Black/White get a reference in this chapter. **

**I apologise for this being obscenely late again. As I said on my profile, I have had a lot to do, so that delayed it, yet somehow I still managed to produce the longest chapter so far. Strange. Anyway, thank you to everyone that read this irrespective of the above. **

**Arigat****ō**** gozaimasu to WildCroconaw, Darkraifan462, Sonnikku17, P3MF, and especially CoffeeIncluded (for general loveliness and motivation). **

**The next chapter is planned out, but requests will be open again afterwards. Until next time.- Arcanus**


	15. That Which Comes After

That Which Comes After

It has been known to every being on this world from the very beginning, from the tiniest Rattata to the most majestic Wailord, that the legendaries endure forever. From the instant the universe began, they took up their allotted, eternal places, governing whichever aspect of nature had been given to them, and they would be there still when it ended. This fact is simple, unchangeable, undeniable. To ignore its truth is less heresy than simple blindness.

Yet it has been equally known from the birth of this world that, whilst the legendaries remain ever perfect, ordinary humans and Pokémon must fall in battle, starve, be killed by chance, drown, burn, or, even should they manage to escape the myriad pitfalls that life offered them, they would eventually fade into the stillness that awaits the end of every existence. Some curse, some struggle furiously as they slide closer to the abyss, some accept their fate gracefully and willingly tread the path that, once walked, can never be retraced. Yet even the bravest, even those who loudly boasted that they were going to glory as they lay dying in the midst of battle, can escape the ice-cold flicker of fear that flares, however instantaneous, in their hearts, as they wonder what fate truly awaits them.

From the start, the Original One had known that death would be a necessary evil. It saddened Her to unleash it upon the world, knowing how it would divide family and friends, but a world without death would render any hell the gods could create worthless. Sicknesses would never end, the planet would, in a matter of generations, be full to bursting, every inch crowded with flesh, famines would rage yet no-one could be released from eternal starvation – mercifully, She gave them death.

As soon as that first heart-breaking decision had been made, the Creator began to plan for those lost souls. The next world, unlike the realm of mortals, would be just. Evil would be punished, good would be rewarded. It would be infinite, stretching beyond the boundaries of even Her imagination, so that it could never be filled and cause the type of misery that might have been present on earth. Adding Her strength to that of the rulers of Time and Space, She rent the dimensions and brought the two new miraculous worlds into being, and waited for them to be filled.

The realm where the evil would dwell was a hellish place unlike any other. No plants grew on the harsh crimson rock that made up every inch of land there, and, had there been any, no crystal streams flowed to nourish them, leaving those who were brought there to starve and thirst. No one place was distinguishable from any other; the inhabitants simply wandered, without direction, thought or end, throughout the world, and no matter how they sought light, or warmth, or the sudden beauty of a tiny flower blooming in a crevice of the red stone, their desires would never be fulfilled. The brief, heart-thumping wander astray of the young child or the aggravation of the travelling warrior who finds themselves in a forest seemingly without end were as nothing to the endless staggering, dry-throated, desperately hungry, exhausted travels of the dead in that horrific world. Some were strong, surviving decades with instinct and determination, yet, with eternity to suffer, they all eventually succumbed, were reduced to the blind eternal shamble through the world where up, down, west and east were all one and the same, having no existence beyond the yearning for a mouthful of water, a fresh breeze, a bite of food, but above all something different, a place that was not where they were.

With Her infinite powers and equally boundless mind, doubtless the Original One could have designed intricate tortures and torments designed to make the world of the damned even more hideous than the sheer nothingness which already filled it, but Her kindness would not permit it. The evil were left to rot on their own terms, and beyond their reach the world continued.

Years passed, then centuries, and within that time the face of the world changed beyond recognition. Wars broke out, plagues spread across the land, the feuds of legendaries drew hordes of mortals into their conflicts; all brought yet more spirits into the shuffling ranks of the dead. With the desperation of those who know that honour and nobility may not help them survive until dawn, many committed acts of which even the gods fear to speak. Laws, bonds, scripture – no matter how sacred, all were cast off in the long night of fear.

Eventually, the greatest of these wars, the combat between Time and Space which cleaved Sinnoh in two and, to this day, has remained the highest cause of death in the region, surpassing disease, age, everything that speeds humans and Pokémon towards their end, reached its conclusion, stopped by the intervention of the Strange One, Giratina himself, who toppled the two bloodthirsty tyrants with his own over-mastering violent nature. Hours were lavished on the slow, careful torture of Dialga and Palkia, first children of the Creator, as if it were a particularly fine carving – every claw-swipe, every small chunk of matter removed, every line scored into the artist's medium added a little more detail, building, building, finally culminating in the supreme mind-rending pain that, for Giratina, was as beautiful as any collection of shades and brush-strokes. For this, he was banished to the world of the evil spirits, the ultimate sinner being met with just reward – after all, his birth, opposite in every way to that of the benign legendaries, the planned, chosen ones, brought about it the nascence of a stranger type of matter, the material from which his mother and siblings wrought that eternal prison.

And the Master of Perversity relished his punishment.

In that place of purposelessness, Giratina found meaning in giving pain. Even before, he had loved the cries of those he hurt, and now, when it became his sole diversion, it consumed his life. The Lord of the Dead took upon himself the responsibility of punishing the damned, the task that the Original One had lacked the cruelty to carry out, and performed it well. Though the inhabitants of the world he now ruled had thought the aeons of nothingness a hideous penance, now they craved that time, for endless tedium had been replaced by endless torture, equally unending and hopeless, yet more painful. Giratina set himself up as king over the dead, taking delight in tearing their essences limb from limb, seeing them dissipate like smoke in the wind, then watching them reform and slashing talons through them once again, floating after them, whispering in their ears, reminding them of every crime committed in their former life, no matter how small, until the guilt drove them even deeper into insanity, throwing them from the edges of the floating red-rock islands to see them fall endlessly, manipulating the already distorted laws of that place, creating waterfalls that soared high towards what might have been the sky, or ground, or horizon – for who could tell in the realm of Giratina? – which, at first, seemed hopeful to the inhabitants, for cool drink had not touched their insubstantial throats for many centuries, but the instant they dipped their grateful hands down to drink they were pulled into the raging, impossible torrent, sped up and down and over and across it, utterly incapable of touching, of taking even a single mouthful, whilst what they desired was mere inches from them, a thousand times more tormenting than those centuries of a waterless world had been. Eventually, not even the strongest of spirits could bear the torment a heartbeat longer; they shunned their form, and became part of the flowing dark energies that twined around that place. Giratina saw all this, saw the sinners fall into the elaborately made game he had constructed and lose, and laughed long and loud, master of all he surveyed.

Although they recognised that the wrongdoing the spirits had committed in their former lives merited punishment, the legendaries met, and decided that eternal torment for finite evil was far too cruel, and gave them a chance; should they be able to pass through the multiplicity of intricate puzzles that the Lord of the Dead had placed throughout his realm, they would find a gate waiting for them, leading to the world they had once inhabited, and would pass through it to be reborn, having completed their penance. Yet, even with this one small, wavering hope, all still knew that there were much better ways to escape the world of neverending distortion; much better ways to live a life.

Some spirits, even when liberated from their heavy bodies, still harboured feelings towards those who were alive, whether they had wronged them or occupied such a great portion of their heart that they could never be left behind, and they, if not malevolent, had the blessing of the legendaries to stay on their planet as long as they wished. Insubstantial, yet no less present, they remained, watching, occasionally offering help or hindrance, but for the most part solely content never to have to leave.

However, despite these few, with their lingering emotions binding them to the material world, the vast majority of spirits moved on. Another world had been created at the beginning of the universe, and it awaited them.

The heavenly realm of Pokémon, like that of Giratina, was infinite in size, but wherever that world was dark, cold and miserable, it was full of light, warmed by the light of an alien sun, and resounding with laughter. Everything that was beautiful had been placed there for them to enjoy, a thousand times better than any feeble copy of it Earth could produce: oceans of the deepest blue, where even Fire Pokémon could swim without fear of harm; immense, verdant forests, stretching for miles, filled with elegant trees, blooming flowers, and clear pools; wide, open skies where many could satisfy the curiosity that had plagued them in life and finally take to the air as if they possessed a Butterfree's jewel-bright wings. Every last detail had been designed to delight. The inhabitants were free to spend their days as they pleased, asleep or at play or merely content to lie in the balmy sunshine. Perfection issued from its every part.

Yet some still missed the earthly world; not just its places and its people, which could have been kept close through electing to become wandering spirits, but the feeling of being alive, of battling with a partner, of tasting fresh berries straight from ordinary soil, of those things, which, even though they held the potential for pain or suffering or disappointment, were sorely missed, and, for that reason, could never be replicated in the afterlife – only perfection was permitted in the realm of the good. Although heaven still seemed as bright to them as it ever did, they still yearned for the mortal world, and, finally, a small delegation approached Uxie and begged for a way to return.

The Custodian of Omniscience sympathised, and agreed to enable Pokémon who wished it to leave the afterlife. However, she feared that, having returned to the world, they might face the negative aspects of it in addition to the positive – hunger, loneliness, boredom, sickness. Pondering this problem, she retreated to the Hall of Origin, meditating on how best to resolve it. For three days and three nights, she remained inside, all her capacious intelligence focused solely on a solution.

When she emerged, she immediately began preparing, calling the bird Pokémon who served as the legendaries' messengers to her and beginning a plan for the creation of two entirely new beings. To ensure that the Pokémon who returned from the spirit world would always have plenty to occupy them, they must be retrieved from that place by a human; however, to prevent abuse, neglect, or anything that might cause the resurrected being sorrow, the human could only enter the next world with the aid of a Pokémon loyal to them.

With a single chrysanthemum borne to the peak of Mount Coronet by Shaymin Flower-Bringer and two life-seeds that Mew graciously chose to bestow on them, Uxie drew on the creative energy that roiled around the resting place of the Original One and brought into being Musharna, a creature of pure psychic energy, and its smaller companion, Munna. The Moon-Queen, Cresselia herself, came to the Hall to give them the mastery of dreams; they could take them as their food, remove them from others, who would then remember nothing of their colourful nightly visions, and even, once they had attained the more powerful form, bring the images it saw into reality. Awed at the power of creation they had been gifted, an ability not permitted to an ordinary Pokémon since the dawn of time, the two newly born beings bowed, and forever dedicated themselves to the service of Cresselia. Even today, a brief glance into one of her temples will always reveal elegantly worked pottery censers crafted in the shape of Musharna, with scented smoke rising in spirals from it as rose mist drifts from the creatures themselves.

To enter the next world, the human and their partner must have located one of those two Pokémon, and submit themselves to an examination of their hearts. If the follower of Cresselia who studied them found goodness within the applicant, they would produce a pale smoke, which the two could capture in a flask or pot, then take away to begin the next part of the ritual.

The two would enter a shelter expressly built for the purpose, after cleansing themselves and offering prayer to the Moon-Queen. Within its walls –which no being, human or Pokémon, could enter, save those who themselves intended to pass into the next world- they removed the stopper of the flask, allowing the smoke to spread throughout the shelter. This would plunge the Pokémon into a deep trance, and its human partner along with it, but not before the human had placed it onto the futon that formed the shelter's sole furniture. A few seconds longer, and the human would lapse into slumber, following its friend into the world from which so few return.

Cresselia, having received their prayers, would open the gates of the next world once both had spoken their names and the word which had earlier been disclosed to them through her power - through dream, suggestion, or half-remembered memory. They would be granted access for a mere hour, and no longer; a few minutes more, and they would never leave.

Once they had entered the afterlife, they would find a shrine awaiting them, placed on one of the innumerable tiny islands that filled the void. Here, the spirit of the Pokémon would appear, to find everything that it could require; a small fruit garden supplied food to sustain them on their journey, a box within the shrine held the objects they found on their travels, a shelf anticipated the arrival of further items, which would later be traded with those that passed the shrine. But above all in importance was the great bridge, the bridge of amethyst, sapphire, turquoise, lime, lemon, saffron, ruby, that spanned the unreal blue sky of that world, and led to the true dwelling-place of the dead.

The Pokémon, with its dreams of the spirit realm, provided a vessel in which the world could be navigated; the human provided direction. Together, the travellers would tread the great sky-bridge, walking for what seemed spatially like leagues, yet took mere seconds to cross, and find themselves in the place where spirits lived.

They would wander the forests, oceans, and skies –for, in their trance-state, the same gifts of flight and diving that the dead possessed were bestowed upon them- and, as they did so, meet with the departed Pokémon. If a spirit longed for the world it had departed, and wished to join them, it would leave its hiding-place and make itself visible to living eyes, then request that the traveller undergo its test.

The tests were simple enough to ensure that even the least able of travellers be able to return with a spirit accompanying them, yet were also designed to deter those too slothful or unkind to carry out such deeds for their future partner's sake. They took the form of the games many spirits played in the afterlife; preparing sweetmeats from berries, leaping for balls from the spouting fountains of a Wailord, searching for a friend that had concealed itself somewhere in the vicinity. If the game was completed to its satisfaction, the spirit would smile benevolently, and disappear, leaving behind it an aroma of fresh leaves. There was but one path left to walk.

However the traveller wandered through the next world, they would inevitably find themselves returning to the Tree. Soaring higher than any on earth had ever grown, it spanned the world of spirits with its immense leafy boughs, omnipresent and lit with a glow that no ordinary tree possessed. Around it, in shimmering, drifting bubbles, could be seen the sleeping forms of the Pokémon that had decided to enter the world of the dead, all coloured, and childlike as if drawn by an innocent's hand, far from the darker, sharper everyday reality. Light from a bright, hovering sun pierced the cool shade it cast, shafts of gold streaming down to touch the sprouting emerald grass with a warm, honey-like hue.

Wondering, breathless, the traveller would wander beneath the great spreading shadow of the Tree. Not even the legendaries could truly say they knew its origin; some tales whispered that the Original One had found a Seed in Her paradise that even She could not explain, and planted it in the soil of the spirit realm, tending it with Her thousand arms, until it finally grew into the extraordinary titan that the traveller saw before them; others that among the first children of Arceus had been one that was closer to the plants and earth than even Celebi, Guardian of the Forest, but one that weakened and began to die almost from the instant its lungs tasted the air of the new universe, and was preserved as a tree, sheltering all beneath its branches; others still that the Tree had always existed, even before the Original One blossomed forth into the void, and that if you ran along one of its innumerable limbs you would find yourself in strange other worlds that were like yet utterly unlike the one that Arceus had brought into existence. Nevertheless, none but the Creator herself knew, and She would never tell.

At the base of the Tree was a simple hollow, gleaming with the small, starlike lights that appeared in countless places in that world. To return a Pokémon from the land of the dead required the simplest of sacrifices – a single berry, easily obtained and even more easily placed into the hollow and dedicated to the gods of the spirit realms, yet, if the traveller should prove too selfish to even yield that for the life of a Pokémon, they would return to the world of the living alone. Once the sacrifice was undertaken, they were permitted to choose a single spirit they had encountered to be revived; no more, for allowing them to raise the dead, a gift that seemed more befitting of deities, as cursorily as that would have encouraged pride and then greed; omniscient, and knowing the consequences of giving those in the future similar gifts, the Original One placed this restriction.

The human and Pokémon bonded in one body return home with their new partner, waking from their dream and journeying to a secret place deep in the forest where they would find it waiting for them. Its location is utterly unknown to all but the old man and shrine maidens that live there; to find it, the traveller must inhale the smallest breath of Musharna-smoke possible, and wander through the wood until they find themselves there. The Pokémon gathered around the fire lean back, comforted by the tale; yet some remain unconvinced, afraid. How should they enter the afterlife? What path could they walk, what sea could they swim, what mountain could they climb? Even if they lived good lives, how could they possibly find the way to the next world?

Every treacherous path has its guides. Those for the path to the realm of spirits were the Litwick, small flame-demons that give their form to the candles still seen burning at funerals today. With the tiny wavering light on its wick, the colour of a Gengar's insubstantial flesh, glowing in the blackness, the spirits would follow the beings who alone in all the world knew how to traverse the path to the next. But the Litwick knew that the living as well as the dead might try to follow them, and a horrific fate lay in wait for all those who might attempt to follow them without having passed on; as the spirit drew closer, they would feel cold, then sluggish, then be racked with a final gasp of pain as the last remnant of their soul was ripped from their body. The small flames on their heads naturally sucked the life energy from any living beings close by, whilst leaving the dead unharmed; the Litwick took this as their food, and regarded it as their reward for performing their time-honoured duty. Ever since the fire-demons were first seen hopping their way through the night, their devilish mauve lights obscured by vague unidentifiable veils, the true nature of which the mortals who glimpsed them were utterly unaware, yet still gripped by a shiver that ran the length of their spine whenever they sighted one, parents had feared and pulled their cubs or hatchlings or children closer and told them to never follow the dancing purple flames. Those that forgot every chilling story of childhood and followed, driven by grief or curiosity or the hope of gain, were easily identified; each was marked with a tiny round burn on the forehead, where their essence had slowly been tugged from their body. The bodies were always buried in the westernmost corner of the graveyard or the ground floor of the burial tower, for a human or Pokémon that tried to tread the path of the dead in life could never walk it in death, and surrounded by ordinary lanterns which were kept always alight, lest whatever was left of the soul become afraid, sensing its body in the dark and fearing that more small purple flames would come slowly jumping closer.

But for those who had turned away when they saw the small demons making their way through the night, they died in the ordinary way, and their spirits, liberated from heavy flesh, felt an irresistible urge pulling them towards the Celestial Tower. In the earliest days of Unova, a small throng of builders converged on the area, and worked in silence for a month, piling white marble into a great monument that stretched so far that wisps of cloud surrounded its lonely heights. After the last slab was laid, they vanished, leaving behind them only the finest burial tower in existence and a gigantic bronze bell which produced sounds that no ordinary instrument could replicate. Many years passed, and the inhabitants began to bury their dead there in the customary fashion. Yet they, in their long funeral processions, white-robed and mourning, were not the only beings to come to the tower. From Kanto to Johto, Fiore to Hoenn, Sinnoh to Orre, spirits felt an irresistible pull, calling them on, on, towards it, as if a great candle burnt at the heart of the land of Unova, drawing the spirits like fluttering, hypnotised Larvesta. Silently, the departed Pokémon drifted towards it, abandoning themselves to the strange winds that only their translucent forms could feel.

They floated for days and nights, finally coming to the tower of stone that stood out harshly against the sky. Flame-demons awaited them at the door, guiding them up the great spiralling staircases the like of which the people of Unova would not know how to construct for many centuries. The spirits drifted on, through the ranks of grave markers, past the mourners crouched beside the burial places who shied in fear upon seeing the Litwick hop slowly past, and finally onto the roof, swathed in cloud.

Here, many spirits became afraid; despite having journeyed for so long, and finally reached the place where they could ascend to the next world, they were still reluctant to give themselves up to fate. They, whilst the others willingly followed the demons up the pathway in the clouds, remained behind, trembling and unsure. But if a brave person reached the top of the tower, fighting their way through Litwick and their own fear, and rang the bronze bell, the sound would pass through their essence, calming them, and the spirits, imbued with new courage, would take strong, confident strides onto the sun-touched cumulus, and be welcomed with enfolding arms of whisped white into the sky.

And the humans? Though humans and Pokémon are equal, they are nonetheless different, and the Original One left something else in store for when they departed their bodies. As they had travelled in life, they would then be permitted to undertake the greatest adventure of all in death – a quest spanning the whole of the universe. Scrawls of stars and dust across the dark heavens became paths to be walked on, the surfaces of moons could be trod without a second thought, they could touch even the deepest hearts of the planets that jewelled their galaxy on the slightest whim. They could retrace the steps they had taken on Earth, and watch the next generation, young and full of hope as they had once been, do the same. They could join their Pokémon partners in their world, staying as long as they pleased and doing whatever they would, but inevitably moving on. Ever since the first rōnin of the two species had walked side by side, and the first hollowed fruit of heaven had sealed the bond, it had been human nature to continue down the winding road.

But even the never-ending journey did not have to be the end; as the Pokémon had their escape routes, the humans also had other choices. It has only ever been prejudice that truly separated human and Pokémon, and rebirth as one comes as naturally as rebirth as the other to those willing to recognise the illusory nature of the divide. The weakest Magikarp might have been the greatest warrior of her age, whilst the strongest battlers of today might have once bowed and scraped in the soil as their herd leader passed. Human and Pokémon, Pokémon and human; both live, both have souls, and their forms are mere cloaks hiding the identical burning spirits within.

* * *

**Late again ... this is becoming a recurring theme. Sorry, everyone. Anyhow, thank you to Mato Rin for alerting, to everyone who has read this so far, and especially to CoffeeIncluded for helping to inspire part of this chapter. **

**As of now, requests are open, so if there's anything you'd like to see, don't be shy. Until next time.-Arcanus**


	16. The Three Noble Knights and the Child

The Three Noble Knights and the Child

In the beginning, Pokémon and human were created equal. They lived separate lives, understanding that some of their ways were for the most part incompatible, but nonetheless respected the other kind, and were ever willing to assist one another. Just as Pokémon were free to roam in towns and villages, searching for food, trading for goods, taking shelter in eaves or beneath shrines, humans were welcomed into the wild, permitted to travel through the long grass and walk the woodland pathways, although both knew their restrictions well; cause too much trouble, and Pokémon would be chased away from the towns, whilst the humans had to be certain of their strength before passing into the places where nature still ruled, lest their inhabitants prove too strong for them. Time passed, and, save for a handful of incidents, wars over territory or food, the two divergent kind grew ever closer. The boundaries between settlement and wild became increasingly blurred, with trees creeping further in to line the streets and more and more houses springing up deep in the forests. With the discovery that the fruit of the Apricorn tree had the power to hold Pokémon in the form of energy within them, the bonds that already twined the races together were firmly cemented. They formalised the kinship more than blood vows and temple ceremonies and contracts in flowing black ink ever had, and, despite the control over their partners that the containers crafted from the fruit offered the humans, it was equality far more than oppression that resulted from the advance. Pokémon were welcomed into homes, and knelt at the same table to eat; it was even said that some became so close that there was nothing to distinguish between them. Tales were told of Dewgong smiling mysteriously on moonlit nights and casting away their thick fur to walk the land in human form, and of maidens shrouding themselves in cloaks of cobalt silk and soft feathers then shooting upwards into the sky as Dragonair. The latter were well-known as haunters of battlefields and revered for their power over the heavens, yet were benevolent and gentle, and often descended to earth near stretches of water to bathe in human form – for the shedding of their miraculous cloaks would cure any ailment they possessed – and, in this form, could be courted as human women could, leading to more than one young human concealing themselves in the bushes around pools and lakes in the hope of seeing one.

Yet, across the gleaming ocean, far from the small cluster of regions, where the trade winds that had borne the secret of the magical fruit across to Hoenn and Sinnoh could not reach, Unova lay, oblivious to the new discovery. Furthermore, its distance separated it from the patron deities of the primary four regions, meaning they could not safeguard it as they did their own homes. In those rare cases where humans turned on their partners, such as the terrible winter when a single man, armed with a katana of a kind that had never been seen in Sinnoh, with an impossibly strong blade and unparalleled sharpness, stalked the countryside near the city of Veilstone in search of Pokémon, not only murdering for meat but also for the sheer pleasure of the deed, or when Pokémon used their fighting prowess and mastery of the elements to harm the other race, the legendaries would bring their might to bear on the criminals – even those such as Giratina, Lord of the Dead, recognised the horror of such acts, and punished them accordingly. But Unova was beyond the reach of even their abilities, two of the beings that might have fulfilled that role had disappeared, concealing their spirits in twin stones that were hidden in near-unassailable locations, and the third gave little thought to anything but its ever-present hunger and unending loneliness. There was but one solution; new legendaries must be born.

Resolved to carry out her task, Uxie ascended the golden stairs to the centre of all creation; the Hall of Origin, where Arceus lay in a sleep so deep and unending that it could have passed for death. Her body rested in a vault formed from purest gold, girded by the swirling tentacles of raw energy that felt their way across its surface, so potent that even the merest graze of one against the skin of the most ordinary creature would give it the power to tear asunder the fabric of the universe or weave it anew. Reverently, the Guardian of Wisdom bowed deeply before the sacred place. Head still dipped towards the marble floor –for even she, who knew all, was in awe of the Original One- she made her way across to the vault.

Reaching the great edifice, the goddess inhaled, knowing the possible consequences of the act she was about to perform, and reached one limb slowly towards the lazily-curling shining vines. Like Arbok rearing their heads in the heat of the Kanto plains, scenting some new creature in their territory, the flowing streams of energy slid away from where they lay twined around the vault, and rose, swaying, into the air. Awakened, a rainbow of shades rippled across the currents: the emerald of the Eterna Forest leaves that waved in the spring breeze to the west, the blazing red of the magma that boiled in the heart of the giant volcano at Cinnabar, the sapphire of the miles of water concealing Kyogre from mortal eyes, the warm saffron of the monks' robes from the towers in Ecruteak. Half-cautiously, a handful of vines descended towards the goddess' outstretched palm, twisting around it but never quite touching, as if examining the divine being. Uxie gave a rare smile, and spoke, gently probing the energy with her mind: "I am she, the Custodian of Omniscience. I have come to ask that the Original One lend me Her power."

The coiling energies surged forwards as one, wrapping tightly around her forelimb in a gauntlet of brightness. For a few minutes, Uxie held it there, energised, exhausted, relieved and agonised all at once by the raw power flowing through her body, then directed the flow of energy towards the floor, splitting it into many paths.

The intention of her work had been to create defenders; since, even when they were created, they would not have the older legendaries to assist them , Uxie chose to create many. By the end of that day, over thirty newly born deities stood in that hallowed room, all filled with the power she had gifted them, armed with blades of steel or sharpened leaf or stone, with all the dexterity, strength, intelligence and kindness that any being could desire. They resembled some ordinary Pokémon that had come before, such as Rapidash and Sawsbuck, but seemed somehow nobler and braver. All bowed their heads before the wisest of all Pokémon as she blessed them, told them of why they had been born and the land they were destined to protect, and summoned to her the swiftest and strongest Pokémon of the four great regions to bear them to their new home.

From every corner, they came: Dragonite towering over the small legendary, Salamence with teeth curved and gleaming like sabres, Metagross formed from burnished ore, and Garchomp scaled with earth. In respectful silence, they listened as the goddess asked them to perform what would be the greatest task of their lives; to carry the assembly of legendaries far across the ocean to Unova, an arduous journey spanning thousands of leagues – an act that would have brought any creature eternal glory, yet one, for the sake of the new region, that would evaporate from their minds like a wisp of Dream Mist. Together, they gripped the precious limbs of the deities in their powerful –yet eternally ordinary- claws, and, suspended on beating wings and powerful psychic forces, they rose high into the air, and sped across the wrinkled silk of the ocean.

The brave chosen few flew on, seeing the sun float slowly into the lightening air, drift up in a slow arc over their heads, seemingly immobile for hours at high noon when it beat down hard on their exposed, salt-weathered flesh, then descending once more, turning the water below to purest gold, then dipping further, bloodying the sky, and finally vanishing, as a tiny silhouette on the horizon obscured the last segment of its crimson form. Gleaming eyes, so often used in scanning the wilds for prey, widened as the shape expanded, sprouted beaches and forests and mountains, soared up before them, and was steadily shaded with every colour imaginable as a second sunrise began, the honey-hued light showing to them the form of the new nation.

The legendaries were placed on the western shore of the continent to begin their journey inland; their carriers rested in the sea breeze for a brief while, then lifted off once more, eyes searching the horizon for the sculpted peak of Mount Coronet. When they returned to the Hall, Uxie thanked them for their labour, and wiped blank the memories of that long day, opening her ever-closed lids and searing away the records from their brains –for to allow them to walk from the Hall of Origin with the location of the youngest region in their minds would be to risk others learning it-, leaving only the now-inexplicable ache in their muscles and the knowledge that they had done their duty.

A clan of almost thirty godly species, the new legendaries of Unova chose to make their home in the Moor of Icirrus. There was water aplenty, and they could subsist on the tough moorland grasses and aquatic plants well enough. Word of the miraculous beings that had arrived in their homeland swiftly spread across Unova, and Pokémon and human congregated in swarms round the fens that now held their protectors. With the multiplicity of types, personalities, and powers the deities possessed, a plethora of cults exploded into being, with clan tattoos and amulets in a full spectrum of colours to match the many different coats of the gods. Yet all, despite their allegiances and particular beliefs, virtually all the citizens loved the new deities, and were happy to continue ordinary life, safe in the knowledge that they were guarded by the celestial legion.

For, diverse as the creatures were, they were united in primary purpose; to defend Unova. Each had been gifted with power, speed, dexterity, or some other ability that would serve them well in battle, and they had learnt ways that these could be used that would not even disturb the wildest daydreams of ordinary Pokémon. For the first decade, all seemed well. They patrolled the coastlines, ranges, towns and woods, ensuring the safety of their followers, pursuing and delivering justice to those that dared to defy them and harm their fellow beings, solving even the smallest problems that might appear – whether a fallen tree blocking a path or a squadron of Golett whose complex traceries of wire had rusted and caused them to become confused, one of the guardians would be there within moments.

But even the gods are not immune to temptation, and before long the new guardians began to spend less time watching the borders and more time lying indolently by the shade of the fern thickets near Icirrus. Their status meant they could easily command ordinary Pokémon to supply their needs, and most were more than delighted to do so in any case. A few half-formed moral considerations fluttered briefly in the corners of their minds to begin with, but vanished as the next plate of freshly picked berries hove in sight. Soon, it was almost as if no flight of foreign dragons and steel-plated creatures had ever touched down on their earth.

Only three of the many that had arrived remained true to their original ways. The Iron-Horned One, Cobalion, first-born of the new legends, powerful yet level-headed, was the first to depart the indolent community, and his ever-loyal friends, Virizion, the Leaf-Horned One, quick and adept at using his blades, and Terrakion, the Stone-Horned One, with strength surpassing them all, followed him. They continued to perform their old duties as their kindred sank further into sloth, although they found themselves stretched to defend the country in its entirety with just three warriors. Nevertheless, they went on.

In spite of their brave efforts, their circumstances steadily worsened. Not only was the void that the legendaries had at first filled yawning once more, but a new lawlessness gripped Unova, more hideous each day. Shrine offerings were stolen, occasionally from hunger or poverty that might have excused the sacrilege, but mostly for entertainment; battles became commoner, rougher, and deadlier, with many mortally wounded in the fights – and even those injuries that might not have been fatal in other places, where the combatants could have been withdrawn into their Apricorn homes, claimed many lives; Pokémon turned their gifts on their human counterparts, and the humans retaliated with the wickedly sharp weapons they crafted. And all the while, the small clan of deities lay about beneath the bracken, paying little mind to anything but the shifting patches of sunlight they dozed in and the minutes left until their next meal.

Though they fought valiantly, for every crime they stopped there were a hundred just sprouting into life. Several times, Virizion returned to the Moor to plead their cause, but he was met only with, at best, disdain and bored looks, and at worst, hostility – sometimes, he would rejoin his friends bleeding deeply from lacerations that seemed to tear across every last inch of flesh he possessed, hideously noticeable against his verdant fur.

Then, at long last, speeding across the still-young nation quicker than one of Thundurus' bolts seeking the ground, came fighting more serious than the often fatal, yet by the standards of what was to come, minor, scuffles that the trio had been attempting to prevent. The great trade port of Driftveil was built on earth that was rich in not only iron, tin, and other common metals, but also silver, gold, platinum, and gems of all kinds, and the wealth hidden beneath the dark soil spread far beyond the city's boundaries, forming enormous deposits within the foundations of Twist Mountain and even discovered inside Mistralton's borders. Not only this, but between the two lay a cave where electricity crackled through the air and magnetic force rippled through the unearthly blue walls, filled with translucent crystals that seemed to absorb the energies of the place, capable of radiating light for years after their removal, attracting or repelling metal with an incredible strength, and even producing lightning – all, from jeweller to craftsman to king, desired them. Both cities possessed enough of the minerals to make them the envy of their counterparts and to rival even great Castelia, centre of both commerce and the region itself. However, bountiful as the supply of metals and stone proved to be, eventually there came a day when the miners returned empty-handed, and envious looks began to be cast at the almost unexplored region between the cities.

Driftveil, whose miners had discovered many of the deposits, demanded full ownership of the treasures; Mistralton, in closer proximity to the cave of the charged stones, claimed all its contents, and asserted their equal right to the more ordinary minerals. With the deities responsible for keeping the peace spending their days doing little more than cooing over the newest addition to their family –for two of the legendaries, the only couple of the same species, had mated, and produced a single child- there could be no arbitration, and without a substantial portion prepared to intervene there could be no peace.

One advantage alone was left to the trio of warriors; the Pokémon of the two cities refused to fight. Many of them had been born in the mysterious cave, and the rest depended on food sources found in the contested area. Knowing that a war would likely destroy their homes and livelihood, a delegation from each community approached the human leaders, pleading with them to negotiate a treaty. They refused, calling the Pokémon traitors, sympathisers with the enemy, anarchists, weaklings, and threatening them with banishment should they continue to spread their message. After many appeals to kinder humans, they were permitted to stay and not participate in the fighting, although the stricter officials still demanded that they use their skills for non-lethal elements of the war effort; Audino were pressed into service as healers, using the reparative energy that they normally reserved for the innocent injured on soldiers, and teams of Drilbur dug trenches around the boundaries, intended to be filled with flame. They were reluctant even to do this, to carry out actions that meant it would be possible for more humans, enemy or no enemy, to be hurt. Yet they still cared for the people of their own settlements, and had no wish to let them be conquered and endure still greater misery.

Once the conscientious few had been suppressed, the war began in earnest. Daily, at the very instant the scarlet sun broke the horizon, the lines of (wholly human) warriors collided, struggling back and forth, back and forth, endlessly, the green mass of the Driftveil army meeting the blue mass of the Mistralton, until, as dusk eddied through the air, the combatants retired for food and bed and careful avoidance of that place a cautious distance from the main encampment where a line of long objects lay covered by pieces of cloth hastily thrown over them, and one set of generals celebrated the gaining of a foot or two of cold ground and the cold silver and jewels that they hid whilst the other furiously scanned their meticulously detailed maps and vowed to take their vengeance. A couple of soldiers might have grown uneasy, not quite able to resist a quick glance at that place or the one next to it where other, similar objects, but ones that moved and might have spoken were it not for the strips of cloth bound tightly around their mouths (save for a couple, whose lips were free to move, and did so, after the tall black-clad man had visited them with pieces of metal that burned brightly even through the darkness and were sharp as Hydreigon teeth) were similarly stored, but as soon as the next bottle of dull amber liquid had shed its lid the concerns simply drifted away. They were nothing to worry about; they were nothing.

Even if the plentiful supply of drink failed to take the edge from the warriors' less patriotic thoughts, the adoration they received back within the walls of their city would have been enough. Once they had passed through the complex network of spikes, gates and passwords, tall fences, garrisons, archers and guardsmen, they found themselves welcomed as heroes. Only the best food could be provided for the noble defenders of Driftveil and Mistralton – empty granaries did not matter. Parades in their honour were held weekly, with all the waving banners and music and cheer the inhabitants could muster, and certain civilians were all too willing to entertain their protectors.

Whilst soldiers were kept in the height of luxury, conditions within the walls of both cities grew increasingly bad. Food was in short supply, with the war confining them to their towns and preventing them from reaching the farms that provided most of their sustenance on foot – only Mistralton's large population of bird Pokémon, and the harbour of Driftveil which could still receive goods from the rest of Unova, kept them from starvation. Water had been sufficient in the earlier days, but then both sides realised that what was available freely to them would likely be available to the enemy, and one day people started to die from the contents of the Mistralton brook. The water was examined by learned herbalists, and declared to be poison. Convinced that their defensive might made the idea of an enemy saboteur penetrating the walls absurd, the war council declared that the murders could only have been carried out by a traitor already dwelling in the city.

They blamed the Pokémon.

Initially, only those who had been particularly outspoken were persecuted, but as conditions worsened – deaths coming daily, not even enough water to quench the thirst of the gravely ill – accusations began to be aimed at their friends, kindred, and any that happened to be near enough to blame. The fact that innocent Pokémon had died, that the corpses of Basculin were still floating belly-up in the poisoned liquid, did not seem to disturb their thoughts. Since most of the Pokémon were small in stature, the rations they received were generally lesser than those their human counterparts were given, but after the sabotage was discovered even Audino in the thick of battle had only a few mouthfuls per day. Fluttering sheets of rules began to appear dotted across the walls of the city, demanding that Pokémon refrain from walking the streets at night, remain at least a mile away from the defences at all times, be accompanied by a human whenever they went to collect their allotted food portion from the stores, report to a registration station before dusk...

As the burden of the endless regulations being forced upon them became steadily heavier, whispers of escape and freedom began to pass among the clusters of Pokémon as they gathered in their homes after nightfall. Although not native to the town, a thriving albeit small community of Psychic-types flourished within it, composed of species that had left their birthplaces in search of employment or to avoid the deep-seated suspicion that many still held towards those that could find their innermost thoughts. A similar quarter existed among the equally oppressed Pokémon of Driftveil, and this provided the link between the two groups. They spoke straight into each other's minds, easily bypassing the iron ring of defences that encircled each city, spending the long dark evenings that they remained trapped in their homes to plan and arrange and carefully refine, step by step, their schemes, and one morning when the people of both cities woke up the Pokémon were simply gone.

They fled, placing the last shreds of their hope in their protector legendaries, to the Moor of Icirrus. The remaining deities had little objection; the citizens of Mistralton, fearing that the Pokémon might plead for intervention, did.

Ingenious as the plan had been, there were also humans with the gift of foresight in Mistralton, and, though the Pokémon had been careful to restrict their conversations to planes of thought inaccessible to their counterparts, a quick search of the surrounding terrain by mind soon revealed their hiding place. The entirety of the town's military was despatched to the area, bringing with them siege engines, ballistae, and a select few civilians that they knew the escapees held dear. A few initial sallies into the territory failed; it seemed as if their prey had simply melted into the fabric of the dull-coloured plants that lined the moor. Loud, mocking calls deep into the heart of the land, promising to torture, rape and murder the civilians that they held bound and gagged in the heart of their camp, produced no response that was audible, though the agony that the hidden fugitives felt was so great that it was a worse punishment than any the black-clad man could have devised not to answer. Still, they kept silent, hating themselves as they did so, and, desperate, the army set the Moor alight.

Waves of flame washed greedily through the pale gold reeds, blackening them then sending them into the air in tiny charred shreds. Trees that had stood for decades crackled in the inferno, toppling and falling to join the layers of white ash that were stifling what had once been the moor, causing the unlucky that had chosen to make their temporary home in the foliage to hurry from the place, but the fire was fast. The swifter of the Pokémon outran it, escaping with little more than minor burns and pounding hearts, but there were the weak and elderly, those less able to flee, and however hard they sprinted or flew or leapt they were still consumed. Only a handful of them, both the refugees and ordinary inhabitants of the area, were able to conceal themselves in the pools of murky water that dotted the area, the Stunfisk and Shelmet and the like, and were able to escape the flames as they roiled a few inches above their heads.

The Pokémon ran to the dozing legendaries –still half-asleep, even with the scent of smoke filling the air- and begged for assistance. With Water- and Ground-types aplenty among them, they could have ended the blaze with the greatest of ease; yet, with the years of idleness, their muscles had loosened, their blades dulled – they barely remembered the names of the moves that could have extinguished the threat in an instant. They cowered, glancing around the moor with fear-filled eyes that reflected only fire, and trembled where they stood, rooted to the spot, dead to the shouts and cries of the surrounding Pokémon, hoping for some brave hero to step from the flames and somehow return everything to their happy ending. Alas, Cobalion and his comrades, weary and scarred from weeks of attempting to end the war between Mistralton and Driftveil, had chosen that moment for a few hours' rest. In a cave at the very centre of the disputed territory, the three slumbered, unaware that a short distance away lay the crisis that they had feared ever since their group had split.

Finally, as panic spread through the cluster of Pokémon at the heart of the moor, a cool-headed Munna had the foresight to search for the trio with her mind, and discovered them in the deepest chamber of the cavern. Relieved, she sent powerful pulses of energy down the channel she had opened, bringing images of the fire into life inside their heads so horrific that they woke immediately. Knowing that it could be no ordinary dream, the three hastened to the Moor.

They plunged into the heart of the fire at once, ignoring the damage it inflicted on their already injured bodies, to find the small huddle of frightened Pokémon at its centre. Cobalion ordered Terrakion to begin the evacuation, aware that his rocky flesh and powerful physique could create a temporary break in the flames, and turned to the legendaries to attempt to reason with them. But they remained frozen, still, shaking like the leaves in the unnatural wind the flames had created, utterly terrified.

Frustrated, the Being of Iron Will told Virizion to follow his comrade from the forest, and continued to urge the legendaries on, pushing, shouting, threatening. It was to no avail, they remained like statues – save for one, the child, small, creamy-furred, with a mane of scarlet and navy and tail of aquatic blue, who quickly trotted from his mother's flank and stood by Cobalion's side. His decision was just as well – the instant the foal was safely with the warrior, the tallest of the trees in the moor, weakened by the flames that wreathed it, collapsed, trapping the legendaries in a ring of impenetrable fire. The child screamed, and attempted to leap the burning trunk, but, heavy-hearted, Cobalion held him back, bundling him away from the place, trying to cover the small, bright, tear-drenched eyes, as twin silhouettes, with the vaguest suggestion of identical red-and-marine manes, dipped their heads together and burst into light.

Meanwhile, Terrakion, the Cavern-Dweller, charged head-first through the final circle of flames, cutting a brief passageway between the licking strands of orange and yellow, but the gateway was quickly filled by the waiting Mistralton army. Swifter than the eye could see, Virizion vaulted over the column of refugees and began to battle, single-handed, with the assembled soldiers, moving from unit to unit faster than even a Teleport could have taken him, and cutting them down with equal speed. Encouraged by his example, the refugee Pokémon rushed out behind him, and began, regretfully, but determined to defend themselves, to fight. Powerful catapults were torn apart by the combined efforts of a dozen psychic minds, weak though their small bodies might be, Joltik, barely hatched from the clusters of sparking egg sacs that lined the corners of the cave of the charged stones, clung fast to the sharp steel weapons that their opponents swung at them, sending shocks down the blades that made them far too painful to hold, Ducklett gathered in teams and shot powerful blasts of water at the enemy lines, forcing them to break ranks. Disarmed, deprived of their war engines, and separated, the army surrendered without a single soldier dead, the celebratory cries of the Pokémon echoing for miles around.

Once the militia had been returned, humiliated, to their home city, the trio of knights, along with the colt-like Pokémon, escorted the leaders to Driftveil and demanded they negotiate a treaty. Word of the miraculous defeat of the Mistralton forces had quickly reached the ears of their enemy, and, fearful of the beings' power, they were more than happy to comply. It was decided that the cave of the charged stones should belong to no-one, but that its mysterious properties would remain free for all natural philosophers to investigate. The more ordinary minerals were shared between the cities, and each would receive a share depending on how much it contributed to their acquisition. As soon as the agreement was signed and sealed by both, the trio disappeared, returning to the wild places where their true home would always be.

They lived in forests, in caves, on mountainsides, all the while caring for the foal – now named Keldeo. He was naturally determined, hardworking, and brave, and always put every last drop of energy into the training the three of them gave him, yet, for some reason, perhaps because of his type, perhaps because of some lingering fear of the flames, he was always fond of water, and could lie gazing at beautiful ocean scenes or lakes for hours, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Years passed, Keldeo absorbed technique after technique, mastering moves of his own in addition to those of his benefactors, learned how to survive in the wild, telling delicious berries from poisonous, and, eventually, left the wood they were staying in and never returned. The trio of knights searched, but all the while knowing it was worthless. Their companion was no longer the frightened colt from the night of the fire, even though, without the influence of some mysterious substance that his mother's milk should have provided, he still retained that appearance. With Keldeo gone, they had no reason to remain together any longer; each departed for a different, secret location, awaiting the next crisis that might strike Unova.

There is a place (no-one, except those who participate in the ceremony, knows precisely where) where, every year on a certain summer evening, people and Pokémon gather in silence to worship gods whose names they do not know. No offerings are left, no incense burnt; but heads are bowed, and wishes made that regardless of their neglect they are now at peace. At midnight, they leave, and the place is empty for another year.

There are fishermen who swear on their parents' graves that they sometimes see a small scarlet-maned Pokémon running across the surf, and that it occasionally glares as if they have wronged it, but more often smiles. If they pursue it, it vanishes in moments, but if they wait, it may wander a little closer, and they often find their nets are fuller on those days.

And there are many temples erected across to the region to the gods whose names everyone knows, containing carvings shaped with delicacy and patience, paintings somehow more than mere brush and pigment, brightly polished incense burners, all in the image of the three that every last inhabitant of Unova, human and Pokémon, loves. There is a reason why bravery is the quality and freedom the privilege best regarded in that country, and it has its roots in a foolish war, a handful of refugees that refused to give up, and three knights who never ceased fighting for justice.

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**Anonymous reviewer – Wow. All of it? Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. **

**Kiwipichu890 – Thanks. (And done!)**

**The Dragonair near the beginning were based on Valkyries from Norse myth. I had the idea before realising that the only swan Pokémon were from Unova, so had to alter it ... *headdesk***

**Thanks to pokedango, An Authors Pen, and The True RSforesvers for favouriting/alerting, and CoffeeIncluded, an anonymous reviewer, and Kiwipichu890 for reviewing. This chapter was requested by the latter two. And, of course, thanks to everyone who read this. **

**Next chapter will probably be more of the Unova legendaries –the kami trio, Meloetta, etc.- or possibly any suggestions I've had or receive in the meantime, depending on what I can come up with. See you next time.- Arcanus**


	17. The Final Aria

The Final Aria

After the destruction of the doomed reign of the second Brothers Divided by crackling flame and blazing lightning, Unova lay devastated and disparate. The vast population that lived and breathed and laughed and walked its hills and built its cities was reduced to a mere handful of survivors, wandering the wasteland that had once been a country. Eventually, small groups of stragglers found others, lone travellers became families, and small, discoloured cherry blossoms began to appear stealthily on the bare branches as spring returned to the region. As berry bushes sprouted once again, and the taints of blood and ash disappeared from the rivers, these clans could cease their relentless scuttling over the crumpled landscape and, at last, settle down.

They spurned the great stone structures of their ancestors, which now stood crumbling in disrepair, and constructed their homes from wood and tanned hide. Pokémon and human side by side, they gathered food and medicine plants, hunted, fished, wove cloth from plant fibre and carved ornaments from the bones of those who died from natural causes, though never from those of the aquatic Pokémon that they caught and stewed with herbs, which were placed into the rippling waters of the stream from which they came, and at the next sunrise rose again, perfectly formed. They governed themselves once again; the two mighty legendaries and the kings they were companions to were gone, and all that controlled their lives was the sun, the moon, the changing of the leaves that the herds of tiny Deerling living in the lands surrounding their villages mirrored in their coats, the quality of the earth. And they were as happy as they could have been in that half-desolate, anarchic region.

On a clear morning, with the bite of autumn in the wind, one of the tribes rose to begin its day in the normal fashion, lighting fires, slipping spears into belts and arrows into quivers for the human hunters, sharpening claws on rocks for their Pokémon counterparts, the keen nose of a Herdier caught a foreign scent in the air. The village border was investigated, and traces of the smell found, but no sign of anything new could be seen. Satisfied, the hunters returned to their work, and the rest to the pattern of their days.

Later, the party returned, having made a good kill, and handed over the carcasses to be cooked. As dusk dawned over the village, delicious aromas wafted from the flesh roasting over the open flame, and the tribe began to gather in the centre, the first stars only just starting to brighten in the sky, patiently awaiting the feast.

The old ones told stories, describing how Unova had been woven into existence by the gods then stretched between the four poles of North, South, East and West, the younger ones amused themselves with joking and gossip at the edge of the yellow-lit circle, their parents discussed the issues of the day – the harvest, how Fluttering Pidove had caught his foot in a snare – until finally a handful of them slipped into a shelter and returned bearing flutes and small drums. Settling themselves in their privileged position before the fire, they took up their instruments and began to play, a wonderful quick-paced melody that set the heart pounding and turned the veins to live-fire; and, as the warm notes drifted out into the night, a small figure stole from the trees and began to dance.

The creature was a Pokémon, but a variation that had never been sighted in that place before it came to sway in the circle of watchers; the size of a child, with a slender body the colour of charcoal, ochre hair curling round her head, pinned back by a black ornament, and eyes, with a third peeping sleepily from above the other two, of the same hue shining out from her pale face. These now closed shut in ecstasy, and tiny feet skipped and interwove and scissored as she pirouetted, whirling across the patch of earth and raising spiralling columns of dust wherever she trod. The circle was frozen into silence as they watched the apparition dance, swifter and more elegant than any corporeal being could possibly be, now in the air, tumbling and somersaulting and staying aloft so long she seemed to be in flight, with only the frantically-moving fingers of the musicians to show that they were still alive, intoxicated by the rapid play of steps. Then, as the dance approached its climax, the creature's movement and the swarm of sound both rising to a frenzy, a small mouth opened in the pallid face, and the creature began to sing.

It was a song more hauntingly beautiful than any of those present had heard, and, although no-one could understand the Pokémon's words, the music seemed to penetrate the very hearts of the listeners. The creature seemed no more than a child, but the song was ancient. Images flickered past in their minds, of unknown vistas and cities and peoples, that vanished as soon as they tried to hold them for more than a heartbeat, yet the burst of bittersweet feeling that arose when they evaporated was unmistakable. And something even more wondrous was happening; as the creature sang, light began to spill from her mouth, enveloping her in a mist of sparks. The pinpricks of brightness ran through her hair, changing it from earth-coloured to leaf-coloured, and letting it spill loosely down her back; the decoration's form became molten, elongated, and curled round the being's face; a spark kissed each eye, turning it azure. Until the dawn the creature sang and danced its impossible dance, changing from form to form as naturally as breathing, and the onlookers were filled with joy, the like of which they had never known.

The village headmen, fascinated by the creature, gave it permission to stay. She was given a name meaning "little melody" and raised in the same manner as any other child of the tribe, playing and learning in equal measure. To protect her swift dancing feet, she was presented with a pair of new-made moccasins, dyed red to match the form in which she danced best. After remaining several seasons in the tribe, she began to join in with the adults' work, grinding the maize or sharpening arrowheads with a skill far older than her appearance, and a short while later underwent the ceremony of initiation and became fully one of them. No matter how her status might change, however, each night the drums would beat and the flutes pipe and she would whirl out into the circle of earth and chant her song of paradises vanished into the abyss.

Years passed, and more years, and more, until the children who had watched Little Melody dance wide-eyed were stooped and white-haired, yet still the dance went on. She learned other songs and other steps, but at the end of every night the ancient melody would touch the souls of those listening and fill them with strange happiness before they slept. Through crisis and war and plague, her everyday music, no different to that which any vocalist could have produced, albeit in a voice that no other vocalist possessed, changed to requiems or battle hymns, rhythms to match the emotions that beat within the listeners, but always, always, surer than the summer rains, concord would succeed discord, the galliard would follow the waltz, and after the nocturne would come the aubade.

Twenty cool, green springs; Little Melody did not age, but remained as energetic and happy as the day she had joined them from the shelter of the trees. Fifty long, warm summers; the tribe prospered, Little Melody taking on the role of protector as well as musician. One hundred cold, bright autumns; Little Melody had become almost a goddess – with her constant kindliness, her songs that could alter the very thoughts of those listening, and skill in battle, she could hardly have done otherwise.

Two hundred icy, deathly winters; the population of the village wrapped itself in a tight circle around the orange flames, eagerly anticipating their protector-spirit's performance. As she had done for the past two centuries, Little Melody, still wearing the pair of embroidered moccasins she loved, moved gracefully into the centre, where the warm light covered her and every onlooker could make out her subtlest movements. But that night she sang only a single lament, long and sad, and did not dance, instead treading with heavy feet round the circle, gazing at every member of the audience, and the watchers saw in her azure eyes –for she was in the form best suited to singing- a different kind of shimmer, and understood something that chilled them all to the core. Little Melody was weeping.

Fruitlessly, they tried to console her, to wipe away her tears, to cajole her into singing the aria that brought joy to all, even herself. The Pokémon villagers attempted to speak to her in their own language, but came away despondent, and, curled in a foetal ball at the edge of the gathering, Little Melody continued to sob. Medicines were mixed, spells were said, meals were made, but all were refused, and eventually, defeated, they returned to their homes to sleep.

A weak sun, obscured and whitened by the pall of cloud before it, rose over the villagers, washing grey light over the tents, the circle of earth, and the small, hunched figure of Little Melody, still rocking to and fro in silent agony. Words of comfort, suggestions of sleep, continued to have no effect, and, shaking their heads, they took up spears or grinding-stones and prepared for the daily work. Yet, as they moved away to continue their lives, the circling sentry Wargle above the village gave a loud cry; figures were approaching from the distance.

To the tribe, it seemed of no importance. Envoys from other villages sometimes travelled to propose trade or discuss matters of diplomacy or war, in spite of their isolated location. Most scattered into their homes to locate bright-woven cloth, the delicately worked stone figures that their craftsmen were famed for, the pottery that had been shaped with as much love as if it had been living flesh beneath their fingers to barter, whilst their fellows walked forwards to greet the strangely-dressed party drawing closer to them. Clearly they must be of some distant clan, for their clothing was so outlandish that not a single one of them would have dreamed of wearing anything similar, but well used to travelling, so neatly did they stride in formation. The Pokémon pacing by their side seemed equally disciplined; a wealthy, organised tribe, then, and one worth making an ally of. That night there would be feasting, dancing, and perhaps even the beautiful song of Little Melody, who could surely not remain sorrowful with the prospect of a new friendship forming.

But as the outsiders drew closer, the indeterminate shapes of the Pokémon in formation around them resolved into utterly unfamiliar species with sharpened talons and fangs, and the long, slender, glinting objects that the figures carried became easier to see, and when they spoke to each other it was in the same language as their protector-spirit's final song – and a shudder convulsed every spine in the village as they remembered the pictures that stole into their minds during the third section, of flowing rivers and sky-touching pines so similar to their own, and how the words she sang in that part were also similar, similar to the first part, with its scenes of civilisations reduced to nothingness.

Fire twined itself in a roaring red death-grip around the shelters. Stone carvings exploded into clouds of dust. Shards of baked clay scattered like snowflakes. A thousand hours' work with thread was torn into falling leaves of colour, then tossed into the pyre sucking hungrily at the remnants of their life. Food that could have lasted for months was ground into the soil, smoked fish and okra and dried berries adding momentary softer notes to the harsh smell of the inferno. Swift arrows broke against gleaming armour. Showers of blood spattered some spear-heads, but most glanced off. Cold metal returned ash and flint, and sank its way into warm flesh.

Some say that the gods themselves wept as they saw the invaders tear apart that village and a thousand others, and that two great tears rolled down from the heavens to strike the middle of Unova, becoming the twin lakes that remain to this day. The tribe's own goddess, struggling against the agony weighing her tiny body down, clambered to her feet and opened her mouth in order to sing the melody which could calm the rage in the heart of any listener. But when she tried to recall the words, only silence came out, and she was left frozen, lost among the howling flames.

A quick-witted young Pansear managed to grab Little Melody by the hand and tore with her from the village. Desperately, the legendary surfaced, and tried to turn back, yet her rescuer, who had not stopped to even recover a day's food, ignored her feeble protests and kept running. Tearfully, Little Melody obeyed, heart rent in two by the cries still coming from the village, and feet mortified by the rocky ground with her lovingly stitched red moccasins lying abandoned in the dust. The heavens clouded, then split with lightning, then pelted them with rain, yet they continued to run. They did not pause for rest until long after the moon had risen, and even after settling beneath a tree and lying back on a bed of pine needles, sleep still eluded them; they remained awake, staring wide-eyed at the stars, knowing that the instant they attempted to doze, fire and metal would cut across the black background of their lids.

They travelled through marshes and over mountains, paying no attention to whether it was blossom or snow falling from the branches above them, never stopping for longer than was necessary to find food of obtain a few hours' nightmare-ridden sleep. For their many months of journeying, not a single complaint was offered, and the only tears shed were for those people and Pokémon who had not escaped the destruction of their home, and the multitude of others whom they, stealing past the blazing skeletons of what had once been entire cultures, saw suffer the same fate. Eventually, after much hardship, they began to encounter other survivors, and travelling became somewhat easier. But no matter how things fared for the small community, the aria that had floated from Little Melody's tongue as naturally as a breath eluded her memory, as if it had been a song once heard as a child and never repeated. The companionship that she now had, though comforting, did little to soothe the blisters she accumulated; she could no longer dance. Trapped in a single form, deprived of her greatest gift, unable to twirl and pirouette with simple joy, forced to live as a fugitive in her own land –the land now being ravaged and destroyed all around them- Little Melody was little more than a frightened Pokémon.

Yet others escaped from the burning village that night, others who remembered every chord of Little Melody's song, and it was that which gave them the most hope, more so than the plans of resistance and war councils springing into existence across the nation. Through the devastation, cruelty and theft of all but the air they breathed, they held the notes in their heads, passing it on to everyone they met, rendering it as best they could without instruments or the spirit's celestial voice, and, as the old Unova vanished, the melody still lived. One day, in a city, perhaps, or at the edge of a lake, Little Melody would come by, and a song echoing from the deepest past would float into her ears, and by that time she might have achieved happiness, found a family or a human to walk by the side of, and she would remember the words that had fallen from her mouth like dewdrops from a fresh green leaf, and dance once more, regardless of the pain she might suffer because of it, carried away by the sheer joy of living. There would be harmony.

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**A galliard is a lively dance dating from around the fifteenth century. Concord- notes that satisfy the ear when sounded together, discord- opposite of concord. Aubade and nocturne are morning and evening songs respectively. An aria is a vocal solo, frequently in three sections with the third a repeat of the first. Just for general interest~**

**Many thanks to Dinova and Floracat for favouriting, to P3MF-Richter for reviewing, and to Crown of Gold for seemingly doing just about everything. Oh, and to everyone for reading, naturally. Next time may see more Unova legendaries (I'm considering a chapter from Landorus and friends) unless I get any different ideas in the meantime. **

**Hasta luego.-Arcanus **


	18. The Three Brother Sages

The Three Brother Sages

Many years ago, in Unova there lived three brothers destined to become magicians. The two youngest, twins, were quick-tempered and passionate, but their elder, a cool-headed and commanding boy, was more than capable of restraining them. So, the three siblings walked forth into the world.

They first trained under the wing of a more experienced shaman, learning beneath his watchful eye the secrets that lie hidden in the scarlet signs that cover every sacred _ofuda _tag given by shrines to those ghosts that crave their power and the humans that train them, the meaning of each word in the hour-long sutras chanted by monks from the Tin Tower rising tall and gleaming in Johto to the great carved-stone Sinnoh temples, the intricacies of the veneration of the legendaries, the way to take simple mixtures made from ordinary grasses and herbs and speak an incantation over them, transforming them into potions that could heal any illness, how to sense the current of life that ran rippling and invisible through every object from plain pebbles to cloud-piercing mountains. After several years, they had matured into experienced young magicians, all the shaman's knowledge had been imparted; yet still they were not satisfied. They left him to the dark recesses of his cave, chanting and writing prayers in flowing black ink across sheets of _washi _dirtied from their long years of storage in the soft greyish dust of the place, and turned away towards the path of greater power.

They travelled on, through long cold snow-dusted nights and dark iron-skied days, all hardship little more than leaves blowing in the howling gale of their thirst for knowledge. They talked with enchanters, with channelers, with witches, learning endless facts, incantations, rituals: the secret names of the gods, how to appease the dead with offering and prayer and banish those that remained malevolent, how to take the hair of those they wished harm, twist it into a thin, flaxen chain, bind it around the neck of a Lillipup and slit the creature's throat with a sharp-edged silver knife, bringing a powerful curse into existence at the moment the burst of crimson soaked the roughly woven material. Still, they were unsatisfied.

Their journey continued. Now they stood as confident men, only just traversed the boundary of adulthood, and legends were beginning to sprout unbidden around the three brothers, who remained within civilisation for just long enough to learn a certain well-guarded remedy or locate the hiding place of some rare glimmering mineral they required. They walked for days through sand-filled winds so harsh that they could strip flesh from bone, navigating treacherous pits and the traps the civilisation that had once inhabited the hulking ruin they negotiated, calling down furious spirits upon the ancient moth-like being, with wings that shed showers of embers and burned so fiercely that the three magicians had to seal their eyes against it or face losing their sight, that remained in the deepest depths, blocking their path, the last remnant of another Unova; and, when it finally slid to the floor, unconscious, proceeding past it to the library that a hundred half-mythical tales describe - filled from floor to ceiling with scrolls and engraved tablets, each brimming with learning that not even the wildest scholar's daydream could encompass, with walls of warm-hued sandstone whose heights were lost in shadow before even reaching the ceiling, which was visible only through the occasional flash of delicate gold-work. Days and nights they spent in the place where everything was known, drawing a circle in salt around the place where they sat and read the ancient, crumbling tomes and surrounding themselves with candles to ward off the hungry ghosts that came to them clutching the funeral masks of dead kings that had lived in the castle. Even after their stocks of food dwindled to nothing and they had no water to sustain them in the dry desert air, they remained, memorising each word, each tortured little glyph. They emerged after several weeks, thin, thirsty, pallid with the absence of daylight, but knowing things which no other human being or Pokémon could hope to: how to not just banish a spirit, but snuff out its spark of light permanently, secret laws that the Original One had set in motion to govern the world, how to bind the most strong-minded Alakazam or Darmanitan to their will; how to destroy anything and everything they wished without effort, without the merest trace of guilt. And still, they ignored the desperate hunger turning their bodies to mere willow branches, and turned to feed the roaring furnaces that burned in their minds.

They became old men, old men that carried within them science and enchantment and philosophy and alchemy and unimaginable horrors, and still the people ran from them whenever they saw them, lean, haggard, covered with oval scars from their failed experiments. Both younger brothers were stung by this, even with their years of learning and lofty concerns, and would frequently abuse those that crossed their path, barely caring whether or not they had actually offended them; every face blended into one, and to their minds every child, man, or woman they passed was responsible for doing them wrong, and deserved to be punished as such. Shaking his head, their kindlier sibling would follow, collecting into his strong arms the goods that they had spilled, returning them to the frightened, stammering owner, and follow them down the long road, listening to the angered discussion of whether the Black Tablets contained the true formula for resurrection or what the eighty-fifth verse of the Dialga Sutra meant for the search for the nature of reality that floated back to him on the hot summer breeze.

Hate roiled in them like an ever-expanding ball of poisoned gas. It was in everything they did, everything they said, everything that they knew that concerned humans. To them, it was always the humans whose expressions of disgust were worse. Humans led the mobs that chased them from the settlements, humans obstructed their way to further greatness, humans refused them everything from a cup half filled with water to a night's stay in an inn. Humans irritated them, then bewildered them, then finally sickened them to the point where the only ones they could tolerate were their twin and their elder brother, and even then they could hardly glance at the others, their own flesh and blood, without being repelled. They forgot the Pokémon that snarled just as loud as their human persecutors. In their minds, the rainbow of fur and scales and skin, the abundance of different sizes and shapes, made each one different; despite all their years of study, they still could not see the most simple thing of all. Only the tolerance and unthinking friendliness of innocent forest Pokémon, the few that did not immediately fly at them despite their stink of chemicals and the unnatural aura that hung heavy on them, remained. Humans were a pollutant, Pokémon the only ones worthy of trust; the elder brother saw them, furiously hoping for the extinction of their own species, with alarm, but knew them too well to attempt reason, merely settling into silence, attempting to repair the damage they did whenever he could, and trusting that this new virulence would soon extinguish itself like a spring storm.

In spite of the constant pyre of fury that they carried within them, they continued to search for anything and everything that could give them power. They summoned forth the mighty Azelf from Sinnoh, and asked for the secret to all-conquering strength. They descended to the broken palace beneath the sea, and decoded each tiny symbol running across the walls. And, finally, against the pleadings of their elder brother, who was growing ever tired of the quest for more learning and ever more frightened of the power that his capricious, quick-tempered younger brothers held in their hands, they gained mastery of the elements themselves. Thunder twined itself round the fingers of the one, flickering and spurting at his slightest whim, energy enough to kill thousands playfully coiling across his arm. The other chose control of the wind, walking clothed in a robe of hurricanes, chased by gusts that snapped and blew at his heels like Lillipup. From inexperienced apprentices to gods in human shape – they had progressed, and it was horrifying. For the first time in years, the eldest sibling prayed, begging the legendaries to see what had become of them.

Triumphant with the acquisition of this new toy, the two younger brothers insisted they stop in a quiet field on the outskirts of a small town in western Unova. There, they began to practise; bolts wider than the Bay of Castelia rained down around them, interspersed with twirling, bending, rushing tornadoes, taller than the Celestial Tower. The spectacular performance of sky and air, cold white light highlighting the backdrop of smoke-black that was torn hither and thither by twisting winds, soon attracted the attention of the locals, and a small party made their way fearfully to the hill. They crept as silently as they could towards the transfixed magicians, and carried only the staffs that they kept to deter thieves, but nonetheless they were scented. Furious, the thunder-master turned and hurled a scythe of electricity towards them. The leader of the party cowered; however, when he opened his eyes, no lightning had fused his flesh, but there were cries and shrieks and sobs, and his eldest child lay still on the floor.

The brothers had hurt and injured before in their paranoia, but never killed. Now the full fury of the Unovan people turned against them, and the staves were exchanged for sharpened sickles. Desperately, the eldest started after them, trying to explain, to apologise, but his younger siblings had fled, and he sprinted down the path into the woods as the heavens opened and arrows of water stabbed into the ground.

In a clearing, the brothers tore open one of the sacks they carried, tossing aside food, water, and clothing, until they pulled out a scroll wrapped in red cloth. Their sibling had found it in the very depths of the ancient library, and taken it into a corner to study. He returned pale and sweating, and made them swear never to touch it, telling them only that there were some experiments that should never be carried out. They, as ever, had nodded solemnly in his presence, then stole back to the shelf, took it, and concealed it among their belongings, sniggering at their own cunning. Despite that, something of their brother's warning had stayed with them, flaring the instant they thought of the yellowed parchment, and until that day the thought of using it had been taboo to them. Their eyes ran over the list of ingredients, the instructions in cramped black script; they carried everything with them, save for the last. Herbs were retrieved from dark recesses of the pack, hands closed around wooden handles, and they began their preparations.

Shouts echoed from the rain-soaked trees. The two younger brothers, still chanting in the lost language, calling to devils, to the Lord of Nightmares, to the Master of Perversity, encircled by a half-complete magical circle, heard, and smiled. As one, they swivelled, spread their arms wide, slammed their palms together; chains of Gengar-coloured energy seized their pursuers, pulled them shaking and trembling into the air, then deposited the immobilised bodies on the damp grass. Hands tightened around yew handles. Their circle could be finished.

Frantic with worry, the elder brother ran through the forest. His directional spells had failed to sense their location, and an encounter with the main bulk of the mob had slowed him – kind-hearted as he was, he still could not bring himself to dispose of them with lethal means, and gentler curses took longer to incapacitate. Calling their names, he cast here and there, blinded by the sharp flashes of lightning and the wind slicing into his eyes, then stumbled through a tangle of thorns and found them stood within a circle, half chalk-white, half blood-red, over two silent villagers with torn clothing and scarlet borders to their necks.

They had read from the final spell, the one that had never been used, even by those that invented it; the spell that would, forcibly, tearing apart nature as it did so, transform human into Pokémon.

Their belts with medicine pouches spaced across them fused tight to their skin at one end, the other curling forth to become a tail. Colour spread across the chemical-blotched skin, turning one a jealous green, the other an ashen blue. Horns sprouted from their foreheads, and their dilated scleras became sulphur. And, finally, casting away the land with its filthy, crawling population of humans, their legs withered to nothing, replaced by clouds that would bear them into the heavens, where only the pure, good-hearted Pokémon lived.

Their deepest desires had come to life – but for the still-raw sting of the villagers' pursuit, they might have flown away and never been seen again. Turning to one another, nodding, and launching into the storm-clouds cackling, they sped towards the low buildings in the distance, preparing to take their long-awaited revenge. Tiny wooden houses, a handful of farm Pokémon, a few weak, foolish humans – all so easy to tear from the ground and into the next life.

Aghast, the eldest brother ransacked the knowledge of half a century, searching for a plan. He denied the course of action rising in front of him, he demanded that there must be another way; but he knew, and, against his will, telling himself of all the lives that would be lost if he stood by and watched, reached for the scroll, and stationed himself in the thicket, waiting for another villager.

A cry pierced the rain, symbols were sketched on sodden ground, grass was soaked dark crimson. The eldest brother stood amidst the howling wind, wrapped in energy. To follow his siblings, he would need to fly, ridding himself of legs and swathing himself in cloud as they had done; yet he loved the earth, and cared for the people on it. Even as he hovered in the air, his lower half vapour, his flesh turned ochre and russet, his skin like hardened soil. His medicine pouch, which had only ever contained mixtures for healing, became like a stretch of fertile mud, and, though horns also grew forth from his forehead, they were far smaller than his brothers, and the colour of sweet autumn apples. The new-born Lord of Abundance flung himself into the heart of the storm, pursuing the twin crazed points of light in the distance.

The younger brothers halted above the settlement, still laughing loudly. Before they could call thunder and gale to tear the town apart, a sudden force smashed into them – their brother's powerful fists of earth, slamming viciously into their lower backs and pushing them away. Angered, they turned, called on their inmost reserves of power, and a battle which Unova would always remember began.

For hours they raged back and forth. Spears of lightning pierced the God of Fertility's hide, paining him gravely, but, thanks to the rock and loam that had replaced his flesh, did not harm him permanently; the twin swords composed of tearing wind that his other brother fought with did little more. With their height, and the now-ethereal nature of his siblings' flesh, the Lord of Abundance could not use the ground to attack his siblings, but there were some gifts of his that would always prove effective. The loss of their human side had deprived the Thunder-Bringer and Wind-Bringer of most of the spells they had used in that form, but their elder brother remembered, and that was what eventually, after aeons of combat, won the battle. He trapped both in a cage of light, and used his mind to disable his opponents' – the one part that remained vulnerable to attack. Sieged by a pain they could not escape from, his brothers fled, the villagers cheered, and he sank, weeping, to the dust.

The currents of magic that ran through their veins sustained them for far longer than an ordinary lifespan, human or Pokémon, and the two youngest simply kept running, frightened that if they stopped for an instant the God of Fertility would finish what he had started. The legendaries convened and decided not to punish the eldest brother, for, though he had killed and participated in forbidden rites, he had done so for a good cause; in any case, nothing could be more harsh than the life he had chosen for himself, chasing after the errant beings and repairing the damage they left in their wake for all eternity. He was inducted into the pantheon of legendaries, and given the power to make any piece of soil fruitful, in the hope that it might assist him in his quest to protect Unova from his younger siblings' senseless storms. Even today, they are said to run their endless race, the two demons circling the region endlessly, knowing that an instant's pause for a mouthful of cold water could mean death, the earth-god following their progress from above the clouds, diving back into the mortal world to restore a field to shimmering green or rebuild a town with his bare hands, and even today people still see inexplicable storms appear from nothing and bright shreds of viridian and cobalt tear the heavens apart.

* * *

**I'M SORRY THIS IS SO LATE BLAME MY WORKLOAD I HAVE EXAMS etc. Now for the good news: requests are open again, so go ahead and ask!**

**Thank you very much to Inspirational Spark for favouriting, to DraconLyoko for reviewing, favouriting, story-alerting and author-alerting, and to everyone reading this. Seriously, thank you. **

**-Arcanus**


	19. Ghosts

Ghosts

From the moment a new being drops into the universe, human or Pokémon, from the moment eyes soaked in the fluid of the egg or womb open, blink curiously, and see their world for the first time, death seeks for them with long, cold fingers. It stumbles forward, blind, and the younger ones laugh, dawdle along the path, picking the bright flowers that sprout by the wayside, taunt it. But the younger ones must eventually become older ones, and they find that they cannot run so fast as they used to. They flee away down the path, heart pounding, throwing endless objects in death's way; but though the charms and powders and doctors may distract death for an instant, they are soon swallowed up, and it keeps staggering stubbornly forwards. In desperation, thinning grey fur or hair torn apart by the brambles they sprint through, bodies torn apart by constant throbbing pains, they run further into the darkened wood, but soon they find that the path is ended, and turn to see, through blurred vision, ice-hands reach out to clasp them.

For the sinners, the endless nothingness-insanity of the Distortion World; for the good, reward in the world of dreams or rebirth. But there were some who stubbornly clung to the material world, and, even when they took spirit form, would not leave. Some were escapees of the Distortion World, haunting a foe that they remembered from their former life, lurking in the shadow of every building that they passed, whispering things that drove them close to madness, watching them, filling everything their enemies did with illusion and bewilderment and fear; the haunted usually joined the haunter before long. Some were merely concerned good spirits, waiting for reincarnation in order to protect a still-living sibling or friend. Yet some were things that made a spark of fear jump in even the most evil hearts, possessing such inexplicable darkness that the place of punishment itself closed its eyes and allowed them to walk free, shuffling away from the hell-world with polite smiles across their faces and insatiable hunger.

Wandering aimlessly across the world, endlessly starving; they appear at any moment in any guise, grinning happily, revealing a flash of ice-white incisor, beckoning, inviting, asking for assistance, offering to guide lost travellers. They lurk, they thirst, they wait patiently. They hunger.

One day, a traveller walked down the Silence Bridge.

He had been journeying for many days, exhausted and filthy. The cool water of the stream rippled azure beside him, tempting him, offering thirst-quenching and a rest beneath the spreading shade of the pines, but the Houndoom that paced gaunt at his side was weakening, and the Cubone he carried in his arms crisscrossed with scars, breathing shallowly. It stirred, and a spurt of black-tinged liquid trickled from the corner of mouth; desperately, he began to sprint, yet knew that the city of Saffron remained miles in the distance, little more than a gleam of faint yellow on the horizon.

Mist closed around him as he ran, arising in smoky tendrils from the clouding surface of the river, creeping frozen into his obscured vision, turning the creature beside him into deadened running footsteps and a faint glint of flame. Something splashed faintly a dozen feet from his right. Thin, sun-starved brambles clutched at his legs. He ran on, deeper and deeper into the mist. The sound of Houndoom's footfalls fell away, and all that was left was his own heavy breathing and the struggling pulse of the creature held close against his body. A branch sliced over his head. He could no longer see Cubone. The fog was thick, a swirling, sickly grey now.

Two red orbs hung in the distance.

He halted, heart thrumming quickly against his ribs. The two crimson spots continued to glare at him. Cautiously, he stepped back; the gaze remained constant and unblinking. He called to Houndoom. The fog beside him remained empty and silent. He swallowed deeply, reached for the knife concealed in a corner of his bedroll, and took a slow step forward, then another, then another, then another, and suddenly, not knowing how or why, he was running-

-and he fell through the mist onto the dirt, and rolled over, flashing the blade at the empty air, and looked up to see a way-house with its usual bored warden gazing incuriously down at him, and a pair of vermilion lanterns swaying gently in the warm night breeze.

Houndoom staggered from the fog beside him, wild-eyed. Self-consciously, the traveller raised himself from the floor, bowed to the warden, who nodded slightly in reply, and continued forwards into the town, followed by a pair of interested pupils.

It was small; the traveller could see the outmost boundaries on every side from where he stood. A few spokes of greyish grass sprouted limply from the damp soil. In spite of this, the town was ringed on every side by perfect rectangles of asters, soft lilac-shaded petals swaying back and forth. Distracted, the traveller snapped back to reality and the wounded partner he carried, and desperately scanned the small cluster of buildings; a couple of homes, a trader's tent, a tower –finally, a rest-house, the kind that were only just beginning to become common in Kanto, twin windows lit amber with candlelight, roof tiled neatly orange, the healers' symbol engraved cleanly into the wood from which it was built as if carved that very instant. One of its keepers, wrapped in the traditional white kimono and wearing the headband of identical shade with a single spray of cherry blossom attached common to all the devotees of Mew that cared for the sick, knelt outside. Catching sight of him, his ragged clothes, the earth-coloured bundle groaning faintly in his arms, she smiled widely and beckoned to him. He followed her into the warmer interior, which held only a handful of people and Pokémon; all seemingly from the town, since they all appeared to be clean and well-rested. The healer took up her position behind the operating table and bowed deeply. "How may I be of service today?"

"Cubone is injured – a fight, poison..."

"Let me treat him. The medicine will take only a short while to administer." She removed the scarred being from his grip and placed him on the table. A small phial of dark liquid was removed from the shelf behind, and long, pale fingers began to smear the foul-smelling remedy into the wounds, the priestess' other hand easily holding the struggling Cubone still. "Have you ever visited this town before, master traveller?"

"Never."

"Then I assume you do not know the story of the lost infant?"

"No."

"It is a tragic tale. Most tragic." She glanced up briefly from her work. "Would you like to hear it?"

"I would."

"Very long ago, there was a mother Marowak and her child. She cared for it as a mother does, protecting it from harm, teaching it how to use the weapons that nature had given it. Then, one day, she simply left. The child did not know why; it merely woke up and found itself utterly alone." The priestess' fingers darted across the table, danced along the arrayed silver instruments, and selected a gleaming scalpel. "It cried and cried, but, nonetheless, its mother would not return." The scalpel pressed into the ravaged skin, and began to lever it up. "It was hungry, but its mother would not return." A trickle of blood seeped from the wound.

Irritated, the traveller interrupted her. "What possible significance could this have?"

"Do you not wish to hear the ending?"

"No. Are there lodgings available?"

"Certainly. Upstairs there are rooms. Your Cubone is fully healed." The Pokémon was released, and immediately dashed for the traveller's shoulder. The priestess' eyes narrowed briefly. As the traveller made his way upstairs, her mouth curved into a grin, exposing long white canines, and she called "I hope to see you again, master traveller!"

The traveller slept badly that night.

* * *

The priestess bowed and smiled when he descended the stairs the following morning, haggard, and inquired about whether he might like to remain in the town a little longer and explore, since rest would be beneficial to the healing of Cubone's wound. Warily, he nodded, and took his leave.

The fog still wrapped the town, obscuring everything beyond the purple flowers. A handful of townspeople, despite the cold, still stood outside. The nearest turned to greet him. "Good morning, master traveller! Has your stay been pleasant?"

"I-"

"Have you heard about the lost infant? Heartbreaking, is it not?"

"I ... I see no reason to concern myself about it..."

The faces remained twisted into precisely the same expressions as they repeated "Heartbreaking, isn't it?"

The traveller backed away.

With Houndoom by his side, he hastened to the other side of the village, breathing a sigh of relief when he scanned the terrain and found it clear of any villagers. It was deep-ocean-cold, and before long the traveller found his cloudy breath adding to the ever-present swirls of mist that crept past the borders. He would have to leave. He peered into the distance, just catching sight of the hovering red orbs in the distance, and turned, but found something obstructing his way.

He leapt back, hand jumping instinctively to his knife, Houndoom whirling into position, but the thing in the mist raised a hand, and moved forwards, taking the shape of an old man holding a small assembly of berries and cuts of meat. "My apologies," he whispered, peering myopically in his direction. "Did I harm you at all?"

Relieved to have found someone sane, the traveller shook his head.

"Good, good." The old man searched absent-mindedly through his collection of food, then glanced up at him, as if the idea had only just struck. "It's almost night. Would you like to come in for some tea? It can become very cold, out here in the fog..."

The traveller glanced towards the boundary, and found it dark; he must have been standing there longer than he had thought. He accepted the old man's offer willingly, and followed him across the expanse of grey, dew-laden grass to a small, well-lit dwelling place, where the shadows of Pokémon could be seen yawning across the rice-paper windows.

Inside, the room was chill, but the frothing emerald liquid poured into both bowls was fire-hot. A Psyduck, Abra and Cubone played on the tatami floor. Delicately illustrated scrolls lay scattered across every surface; most, the traveller was surprised to see, dated from centuries past, but the translucent paper from which they were made seemed to be as well-preserved as the day they had been written. Having deposited his collection of berries into a pot and left them to stew, the old man knelt across from the traveller and Houndoom and sat beaming contentedly. The traveller, feeling the awkwardness of silence, asked about the lost infant.

"Why such interest? Why such ... such obsession?"

"Not everyone is as kind to Pokémon as they should be." He sighed, and indicated the small group clustered around Houndoom, begging it to join them in play. "Look at these poor children." The traveller began to see what his eyes had been blind to: burnt, mutilated webbed feet on the Psyduck, the Abra's crippled left arm, a mass of brutal slashes that covered the entire lower body of the Cubone. "They seem to be attracted here. People take care of them." The Cubone rubbed its skull affectionately against his hand. "They are protected."

Suddenly, unease flashed into the traveller's head; he had remembered his own Cubone, lying quiet in the treatment room of the rest house. He sprang to his feet. "Excuse me. I must see to my partner. Houndoom?" But the Pokémon was sprawled asleep, dead to the world.

"Oh, let him rest," the old man whispered. "You can return here as soon as your business is finished." The Cubone, nosing into the old man's supplies, tore away a chunk of flesh and gulped it down, juices tinting its saliva deep red.

* * *

The traveller burst into the rest house, finding the priestess there frozen into the same welcoming expression she had worn the night before. "Where is my Cubone?" he demanded.

"Cubone? You wish to hear about the lost infant?"

"Where is he, damn you?"

"You wish to hear of the lost infant?"

He sprinted into the back rooms, frantically tearing apart the surgery tables, the bags of knives and implements that scattered, sharp and shining, onto the floor, found nothing, ran upstairs, ran through bedrooms and conversations that seemed always to revolve around the same topic – found nothing. He dashed across the greyish grass, past the wilting and dead asters that bled drops of a burgundy liquid, breath rapid as the dwelling came into view. He kicked through the door and stumbled in to find the place empty, the table clean but for a note written on paper that looked decades old reading _Gone to Tower. Meet me there. _Furious, he hurled the message towards the blaze that heated the gently-simmering meal, ran, ignoring fear and tiredness, into the midst of the village, eyes turned towards the great dagger of bone-coloured rock that reached into the dark sky.

Inside, he could not see, but ran on. Tombstones rose from nowhere and stabbed into his knees, sending him hurtling headlong into a dozen more, but he pulled himself from the wreckage of graves, disregarding the decomposing flesh that clung to him, eyes stared at him and high, delighted voices laughed in the dark, fingers and claws clutched at him. Somehow in his blindness he stumbled upon the stairs and dragged himself upwards, ever upwards, with the rough steps biting hard into his hands. Words whispered at him like playful ghosts. The stench of death enclosed him. He climbed higher, higher, higher, the dark, the cold, the paranoia suffocating him like coffins, the voices circling round his head, carrion feeders, footsteps scuttling fast behind him on the stairs-

-and he raised his head to see the priestess and the townspeople and the old man, all beaming down at the circle of candles girding the small creature at their centre, and the thing turn and look up from the earth-coloured cushion on which it sat, and the seat stir faintly, and cry, and the thing slice another wet, glistening line across its face, which looked strangely familiar to its own-

-and the voices spoke as one, rising to a rush, a cavalcade, a fury, stabbing at him-

"_Do you want to hear the story of the lost infant? The mother Marowak left, and her child was all alone. But soon, bad people came along, and they hurt the infant. The infant thought that it would die, yet it opened its eyes to see its mother standing above it and tearing the bad people to pieces and eating their hearts, for they had hurt her child whom she LOVED. And the mother and the child settled down into a peaceful little town, where they would only see good people. And the mother would always look after her child, and if the bad people returned..."_

-wisps of shadow behind the tallest gravestone began to reform, wrapping themselves into the shape of a creature with a skull shielding its face and a gleaming bone in its grip-

-the little creature at the centre stepped off the twitching body of Cubone, and cried for its mother to protect it, and its eyes were eyes that even the darkest gods feared-

-the bone was rising, and sharp claws were rising, and the traveller was frantically casting about for an exit, and the townspeople and the old man and Houndoom all stepped towards him as one-

"_The infant must always be safe. The infant must always be safe. The infant must always be safe and loved and happy."_

The traveller screamed.

* * *

**Happy Halloween, everyone. **

**Thanks to puppetlover2, Caellach Tiger Eye and the freak locked in ur closet for favouriting, plus CoffeeIncluded for favouriting and reviewing and everyone who read this. Burned Tower next chapter!**


	20. The Towers

The Towers

At the very heart of Johto lies a city, surrounded by a halo of saffron-leaved trees.

It is unchanging, beautiful, less old-fashioned than eternally glorious. The streets are thronged with the bustling purple robes of the monks that spend their lives in the service of the legendaries – many of the richer families send their sons to join them, as it is believed to bring the best of luck. The dancers that perform to entranced audiences every day, captivating with tranquillity and swirling movements, though young, wear the same kimono that their predecessors danced in a hundred years before, making little more change than which kind of blossom to tuck into a fold of silken black hair. Even those who settle from other cities find themselves drawn, day by day, steadily, into the quiet rhythm of the place, and their clashing robes and outlandishly decorated rooms eventually become subdued, merging perfectly into the simple harmony. And, though the rest of Johto might laugh at the antiquated buildings and mock the stiff, formal way of speech, they cannot help some respect for the pool of silence clad in autumnal foliage.

Yet that is not the reason for Ecruteak's greatness.

Their love for tradition, though present everywhere, is strongest wherever the gods are involved. All the legendaries are honoured in Ecruteak –not one week passes where the streets are not hung with lanterns for some festival or other- but even the monks who devote themselves to others admit that it is Ho-oh and Lugia, Guardian of the Rainbow and Trawler of the Depths, that truly claimed the hearts of all. Above all the neatly tiled roofs and gilded carvings of less well-loved deities there gleamed twin great, cloud-obscuring towers, one for each sibling; the Tin Tower for Ho-oh, shining silver in the sun to match his sister's cool nature and love of the ocean, whilst nearby the Brass Tower gleamed gold, identical to the wind-tossed feathers flashing at the edge of her brother's wings and radiating warmth. Opposite in every way imaginable, but closer than lightning and the clouds it springs from; somehow, in the city they loved, they could forget every trace of rivalry and turn to peace.

They favoured many cities with their presence, but it was Ecruteak that they considered their home. Not a week passed where some lucky passerby did not glance up and see a streak of gold and red tear across the sky, pulling a rainbow behind it like a heavens-spanning scarf, or a patch of white dart amongst the refreshing droplets of a spring shower, swirling and turning as if it were a mere scrap of paper tossed by the breeze. Typhoons and hurricanes seemed to be reserved for other cities; the weather was always mild, and a storm would never have dreamed of disturbing the quiet of the tea ceremony or scattering the neatly arranged flowers adorning every windowsill.

But, unchanging as the city is, the Ecruteak of then is not the Ecruteak of today. There is no lamplight-coloured tower breaking the horizon, merely a slice of charred dark wood, hung with pieces of broken window. Inside, purple halos of smoke drift, fangs bared; the Koffing that some say are all that survived from the tower's destruction, departed souls clinging to the melted, twisted bronze of the now-dulled bells and the flame-warped floors. Since that day, others have crept in: Rattata, searching among the torn hangings for food, Zubat, making their homes amid the blackened rafters. The occasional human lingers, too; most obsessed with flames, wrapped in robes mirroring the colour of a blaze, breathing in the ash that stirs into life every time a footstep touches the floor and the faintest scent of burning. A few feathers lie scattered on the topmost levels, somehow having survived the destruction, still cool and smooth to the touch. Beneath them, shadowed in the floor, the original wood, polished to gleaming perfection, shows through; around these pale outlines, all is scorched beyond recognition. Silence floods through like shadows.

People go elsewhere to show their faith in Lugia now. No-one except the most foolish being in existence would ignore the Mistress of the Currents entirely; they know how easily a storm could tear apart a city, how easily the rain could continue falling until only the tip of her brother's temple showed leaden above the waters. But the Burnt Tower is bereft of even the most zealous, although the door remains open every hour of the day and even the weakest could defeat the common Pokémon and fire-conjurers that are the only living things now found within its walls. She is reduced to ivory statuettes on small household shrines and tales of fearsome whirlpools whose span measures wider than the mountain range connecting Kanto and Johto, whilst her brother still glories in the swarm of kimono-draped attendants that surround him whenever he touches earth. To most of the people going about their daily lives beneath the orange leaves, she exists only in the histories they learnt at school, the dried ink on the pages of the tomes that lie crumbling in the polished shelves of the monastery libraries – a kindly fable, one well loved among the children who hear the tales of ancient Johto, but one half forgotten, one that seems as if it could never have risen defiantly before the great storms that the endless battles of Groudon and Kyogre sent drifting towards Johto and used a single beat of her wings to drive them away, or carried a dozen lakes' worth of water to a famine-torn Goldenrod in an hour. Lugia's golden age ended when the first flames sunk their teeth into the gilded foundations of the tower she used as home.

They do not even have a name for that night, they who still speak of Rice-Gathering Month and the Hour of the Mareep. They speak of this and that battle three centuries before, ensure that even the tiniest event in the long, tangled history of Johto is remembered, but when it comes to paying tribute to the day their most beloved goddess lost her temple and sparks drifted like fireflies up into the thick, choking smoke. Most do not even understand why it happened. And Lugia is still neglected, retreated into her cavern beneath the waves.

But they do know that Pokémon have been reported racing around the region faster than even a Rapidash could sprint, though none had ever been known to surpass that speed, and that one leaves wide burn marks slashed across stretches of fresh grass, one looses crackling bolts as it runs, and one flies on the north wind as easily as ordinary Pokémon walk on the ground.

On the night of the burning, nothing could be seen out of the ordinary. The air was cool and still, the torn scraps of banner from an earlier celebration lay in the streets, and most had retreated back to their homes, the fried-Octillery stalls closed and in darkness. A handful of Zubat flitted between the buildings. Aside from them, and the Meowth searching for food, the city was empty.

Except for three silhouettes hurrying from shadow to shadow, furtive and silent aside from the occasional snigger. They dodged behind the beautifully carved panels of the Dance Theatre, scurried around the darkened houses, and sprinted up the wide stone steps of the Brass Tower. Its quiet enveloped them. The three shadows wove through the complexity of corridors, scaled the ladders, evaded the screen paintings and statues that decorated every room. They slipped through the moss gardens and moved softly between brass-gleaming pillars into the lowest floor. The silhouettes halted their stifled laughter briefly, and stepped carefully round the pattern of boulders placed both to ensure good luck through their auspicious arrangement and deter intruders. This was normally sufficient to protect the inner sanctum, where only the most senior monks could enter; but all the monks had departed to the Tin Tower, to join the other order in chanting sutras for the success of the autumn harvest, and the shadows were more than skilled enough to bypass the maze. Finally, reaching the amphitheatre at the centre, they settled themselves onto the seats normally occupied by the abbot and his attendants, and smirked.

The three were members of a group of Pokémon that met every month to practice their skills. They considered themselves the best in Ecruteak; most others simply found them irritating, as their training tended to incorporate much disruption of everyday life, from practicing Iron Tail on market watermelons to gauging the strength of their Whirlwinds on the leaves of the graceful maples that surrounded the city. They had no human partners, slept in disused buildings, and the only rules that governed them were the convoluted system they had designed for themselves, which focused mainly on the entrance rites and the grounds for banishment from the group; it had been one of those entrance rites, that which brought access to the second level, which had brought the three silhouettes there that night.

A Pichu, a Magby, a Marill; three friends sniggering together as they glanced round the gilded pillars, having been charged to first penetrate the heart of the Brass Tower and then spend the night there, stealing away at first light to report back to the brotherhood. They wandered the room, staring at the carvings and incense burners, peering towards the thick scrolls lined on tall shelves, and the silk-draped altar they lay behind. Eventually, bored, they left the centuries-old artwork to one side and returned to the amphitheatre. They opened the bundle of rice-balls they had packed, sated their hunger briefly, and grew bored again. The Magby lit the tapers that stood around the room with a breath and the three sat in the half-light, discussing their latest triumphs in training, their seniors' successes and privileges –privileges that would soon be theirs- and, quietly, the legendary that normally nested in the tower's heights.

Quickly, their respectful tone was dropped, and each one was boasting of how easy it would be to defeat Lugia; their capability with electricity, fire, and ice, the goddess' greatest weaknesses, made it obvious, surely, and with their training and their membership of the greatest team of battlers the Johto region had ever known, defeat for the Trawler of the Depths would be a practical certainty. That they all agreed on – now, all that remained would be to decide which of them was the best equipped. The Magby leapt up, sent trails of flame licking round in a spinning, glowing spiral towards the ceiling, with halos of smoke to follow, yet not scorching a single ornament, and boasted that she, with her mastery of breathing fire, would be able to destroy the Mistress of the Currents in a mere instant. The Marill smirked, and reminded her that, with Lugia's power over the sea, she would likely be defeated before coming within a mile of the goddess; more useful were his resistance to water and ability to command ice. The Pichu laughed even harder, and shot crackling arrows of lightning from his cheeks; his gifts of electricity could affect Lugia even more, and none of her tactics would be particularly effective on him. It was clear that he was most capable of bringing down the ocean-dwelling goddess. Beside him, the other two seemed like children.

His companions leapt to their feet, demanding apologies, and reminded him that they were ready to turn their abilities on him, too. The Pichu simply smiled, and told them it would not be nearly enough to defeat him. The Magby ordered him to prove it. Grinning, the Pichu replied that he was more than willing, and leapt to the centre of the room. His entire form was shrouded in a cloak of writhing sparks; they moved, danced, leapt over the small yellow body until the swirling patterns they conjured into existence spread haze through the others' minds, and, suddenly, jumped into the air in a thick pillar of electricity. Two hundred feet the intertwined bolts shot into the sky, casting the calm Ecruteak night into sudden harsh brightness, brushing the very clouds, then dissipated, having rent a gaping hole in the many floors of the Tower. For a moment or two, all was silent; then a whiff of smoke mixed with the air, and the Pokémon began to hear the quiet crackling of flame.

The Magby laughed, shouted "Is that all you can do?" and called to the flames flickering faintly above them, telling them to work harder. They blazed brighter, wrapping themselves around the tower like a growing vine, flowering in eye-watering bursts of heat. The groans of timbers could be heard, loudly, above them, and then a deafening crash, then another, then another. Ancient, lovingly polished pillars, cut from the pale wood that grows only near Azalea, plummeted to the ground, pinning the three in the midst of the fire. Streaks of metal laced quickly across the windows; the brass gilding of the tower's higher floors, melted, dripping down the outside of the building like copper-shining rain.

The Marill and the Pichu came to their senses, tearing themselves away from the mesmerising, twirling inferno, and begged the Magby to stop; she could still tell the flames to cease, or direct them away from the tower. She only laughed, and called them cowards, and screamed "Raze it to the ground! Show that Lugia, that winged idol, that sodden Pidgey, how easily she may fall!"

In a final surge of fury, twin wings of rushing orange and crimson flared into the sky and enfolded the tower in a tight grip. By then, the rest of the city had been alerted to the destruction, and the population of Ecruteak stood wide-mouthed, tears turning to tiny puffs of steam in the burning air. Lugia, stirring from sleep in her underwater cavern, felt a horrific heat speed through her body, torturing every inch of her feathered wings into agony. Blindly, she fled from her hiding place, flying like a quick white arrow across the ruffled ocean, eyes fixed on a near-invisible speck of cherry-coloured brightness in the distance.

Eventually, the Marill, eyes choked by smoke, head fuddled by heat, staggered to its feet, and somehow managed to summon the last of its energy and perform the sixteenth water technique of the group; the calling of rain. In the clouds high above, clear spears of liquid lashed down, plunging into the inferno, subduing it, turning its cracking and wheezing into mere whispers. But the damage to the Tower was already done, and a flaming pillar plummeted from its heights, ending the lives of the three initiates.

All that was left to greet Lugia's horrified eyes was blackened devastation, her tower seemingly torn in half as if by a great claw striking down from the sky. Her sibling joined her in the air, drops scattering from his wide rainbow-unfurling wings. Both bowed their heads as humans and Pokémon scurried below, lanterns making tiny spots of frantically-moving light.

"They shall be punished, brother."

Astonished, the fiery Ho-oh turned to his ordinarily calm sister and found her incandescent with rage. "They destroyed my temple. They burned the work of a hundred generations. They obliterated my home. Behold this ... arrogance! They dare to openly challenge we, the legendaries. How long before we are a fairytale to frighten children and our sacred dwellings are turned into cheap gambling halls? Their souls shall be turned over to the Strange One personally." Her eyes gleamed with fury, the mild black pupils fractured and sparkling with the tears that clouded them.

"Calm yourself, sister. We still do not know-"

"You welcome this, do you not?" The Trawler of the Depths whirled, and around her were gathering small flecks of psychic energy. "You wished that my temple would burn! Perhaps _you_ planned this?"

He replied, gravely, "I am sorry for your loss," and let loose a cry into the warmed night air. From the centre of the ruins, there came a stirring, and three feline shapes leapt from the wreckage; one rust-hued in brown and red, one patterned black and yellow like a Beedrill, and one ocean-blue and dotted with pale spots, like sea-tossed foam. They glanced up, saw the immense shapes of the two legendaries hanging above them, bowed deeply to Ho-oh and ran, sprinting hard across the rubble and the damp cobbles of the Ecruteak streets; and they would never again stop running.

Lugia retreated to her home underwater; her brother took to the skies permanently, not even deigning to descend to his own tower. As for the three new Pokémon, they raced across the land, not stopping for food, nor water, nor an instant of sleep. Though Ho-oh had burned away the memory of their former lives, leaving only a deep-seated fear of Lugia, something in them still whimpered when they passed through Ecruteak. And they would stop, and pace slowly towards the Burnt Tower, and smell its smoke-tinted air, and tread its scorched floorboards, and they would half-remember why they were afraid.

* * *

**Twenty chapters! Joy to the world. **

**Many thanks to WildCroconaw and Sethera for submitting a heart-attack-inducing number of reviews over a very short space of time (and some interesting conversations), as well as chaos-son and Sethera again for alerting. And everyone else who has read so far! Thank you!**

**Exams may completely destroy my updating schedule, such as it is, for the next couple of weeks- AH HELL REQUESTS~ REQUESTS FOR ALL~ (Requests open again, in case you didn't realise.)**

**-Arcanus**


	21. The Thing That Walks

The Thing That Walks

When the universe began, sprung from a whirling void of chaos, the Original One created from Herself several legendaries: Dialga and Palkia, spinning space and time as easily as a human might twine threads into a thicker fabric, the trio of lake guardians, carrying with them emotion, strength of will, and knowledge, spreading through the universe like an all-permeating scent, Ho-oh and Lugia, red-gold and white-blue, ocean and sky, sun and storm, Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza, destined for mastery over the yet unformed earth, sea and heavens, Mew, life-bringer, Shaymin, who brought flowers and trees furling fresh into existence wherever he stepped, Cresselia, from whom floated sweet dreams, Regigigas, strongest of all, Heatran, swimmer of the magma currents, and the trio of legendary birds, crackling with ice and fire and lightning. All, to a lesser or greater extent, were subject to those leaps of feeling that Mesprit had brought with him into the newborn universe, and, because of this, disagreed, accused, fought. The trios warred amongst themselves over which was the most powerful, the frequent, vicious, ephemeral battles of siblings; the duos, being almost inevitably opposite in nature, fought likewise, and even the single individuals found themselves being drawn into the conflicts – not even the tiny Flower-Bearer, wanting only to spend his days amidst the waving Gracidea blooms ruffled by the north Sinnoh sea breeze, attending to his garden, could avoid taking a side. However, in spite of this, the quarrels would inevitably end, and although the siblings seemed to detest one another's very existence they secretly harboured more goodwill towards one another than they were willing to admit, and preferred harmony. Yet they were not the only ones the Creator brought to life in the early days of the universe.

There were others; dark, sinister, thirsting for blood. The Original One knew well the need for balance, and let them remain, though aware of the pain it would cause. In one final act of mercy, giving the young planet with its newly created population of humans and Pokémon a short relief before the onslaught of Her more unforgiving creations, Arceus tossed them away into the farthest corners of the universe. Since Palkia's nascence, space had begun to expand, pushing the beings further and further away with every moment; yet it was still not enough to keep away the heartless pools of pure hatred that crawled, faster-faster-faster, towards the invisible presence of the world of Pokémon, watching as, slowly, it became a tiny jewel-blue-gleaming dot in the distance, and grew, and grew. Giratina, Strange One, Master of Perversity, twisting and tearing the spacetime his siblings had shaped, delighting in pain; he chose to inhabit an opposite world, where the rules that the Creator and his fellow trio members had set into place no longer applied, where rivers flowed hundreds of feet into the air and all was shrouded in the black cloak of woven, screaming souls. He left only when circumstances were at their most desperate, when the feuds of the Pokémon world grew too great to be solved by mere victory in battle, solving crises simply through the obliteration of both sides, or when some particular issue caught his gleaming red eyes. The other, a tree-bough-slender silhouette of darkness with a jagged scarf of scarlet for its neck, from which flowed a constant stream of smoke the pallor of death with twin slits of ice-blue staring out, ever watching, chose to remain in the ordinary world. This was Darkrai, Master of Nightmares, Haunter of Visions; and, while the Strange One, connoisseur of agony, could torment a body for all eternity, the nightmare-being was feared far more, as he could rend open a mind and turn it into a drifting, broken expanse of nothing in a second. Physical torture eventually fades, and the scar stops aching; the scars that Darkrai leaves are permanent.

He floated down to earth like a stray scrap of dark mist, and let the wind bear him where it would. Aimless, he was carried through meadows, withering grass as he drifted, turning water foul and poisonous, leaving dozens of fish Pokémon belly-up in streams, wiped from existence by the rank terror that the thin shape breathed. He did not know or care about the raw, primal fear that drifted from his very flesh, or the countless small beings that were left dead in his wake

Yet, in the midst of the momentary tapestry the winds wove above Sinnoh, twisting and turning in the air currents, the being of hatred and fear sensed something that appealed to its cold, decaying heart. Mostly, the thick coffin of choice, perfectly moulded nightmares in which he entombed himself was all he could feel and all he desired to feel; what others viewed as horror beyond imagining, what drove others to spend the rest of their lives muffling their screams in the locked rooms of the hospitals staffed by the Mew devotees given over to those that no normal medicine could cure, was as a delicate melody to him. He calculated each tearing of flesh or cracking of bone with utter precision, melding it into the body of the nightmare seamlessly until harmony had been achieved and his latest ingenious torment could be released into the world. Then he watched, contemplating his nightmare as an artist sits and studies every brushstroke of their finished work, indifferent to the anguish of the piece's recipients. But something else had entered his world, something like himself, starkly different to the ordinary beings that roamed the earth, promising untold terror, yet also unlike himself. Questions began to rise in the shade-wrapped depths of the twisted brain, and the spiral of coldly white smoke turned to the west, where the feeling was strongest; darkly musky and moist-scented, hints of an unidentifiable substance burning, and a slight prickling all over the body, as if a thousand tiny needles were being used to gently trace mysterious symbols into the skin. His icy intelligence examined its memories for traces of the sensation, and found none. Curiosity burned; he knew nothing of the cause, only that it appealed to him. He surged, broke free from the maze of winds above Mount Coronet, and began to glide, slowly, towards the place where the dark feeling came from.

The city towards which the being journeyed was, for the most part, wholly concerned with the moon goddess Cresselia. It was situated south of the island where the legendary resided, and on the mornings after the full moon, when the wind had been strong in the night, the citizens would wake to find the north shore scattered with dozens of feathers, each damp from the sea and shining lime-lemon-peach in the early sun. Likewise, the good dreams that flowed from the deity were carried on the breeze towards the slumbering city, and every sleep since the Eterna warlord had extended his empire towards the western tip of Sinnoh and laid the foundation stone of what would become one of its greatest cities had been an undisturbed one. It held the grandest temple to Cresselia in the whole of the region; seven storeys tall, jade-tiled roofs, with twin gold-leafed statues of the goddess gleaming from the heights, flashing bursts of sunlight into the gardens below. And, beneath it, alongside the _ema _written with pleadings to the Moon-Queen, there hung the delicate silken feathers that washed up on the beaches at dawn.

Yet Cresselia was not the only deity the city was beloved of; the Guardian of Wisdom, Uxie, on the few occasions she chose to quit her tranquil cavern or the dizzy heights of the Hall of Origin and join the mortal world, often liked to float through its warren of streets, welcoming its comparative quiet and the opportunity to speak with a fellow peace-loving legendary. She came increasingly often after riddle-makers and _sh__ō__gi _masters heard of her visits, and sprung upon her whenever she entered the gates, keen to challenge the intellect of the knowledge-being. Delighted with the mental exercise it provided, she accepted, and soon players from other cities were flocking there in droves. Uxie did not make the city her permanent home, and her appearances were entirely at random, but they were often enough that it became a common occurrence to glance between the parted doors of a tea room and see the goddess and her latest opponent kneeling on the mats, lacquer bowls of tea empty behind them and a _sh__ō__gi _board in the final stages of the game – inevitably defeat for her partner – before them.

Word of Uxie's sudden interest in the city spread beyond mere game-players and spinners of conundrums, and scholars began to linger with a hope of conversing with her. She began to not only spend time deftly deciphering the puns the riddle-masters threw at her and defeating one _sh__ō__gi _ aficionado after another, but talking with poets, authors, historians. They discussed the meanings hidden in ancient texts, the causes of this battle or that, and more – among the scatter of small islands to the north of the city was one rich in deposits of a strange kind of iron, which seemed to draw steel Pokémon towards it even more strongly than the ordinary type. A delegation travelled to the island to investigate it, found that not only did it interest the metallic beings but also physically attract them to it, and discovered that even ordinary metal was sometimes subject to this. They returned, and wrote a dozen scrolls on the odd behaviour – thus began the accumulation of books that, eventually, were collected into a library, a building as great and imposing as Cresselia's temple. It is still said that the knowledge-goddess wrote by hand the story of the universe's birth then donated it to the library, and that the volume remains somewhere in the lines of thickly stacked shelves.

But something else had begun to take root within Canalave, a dark side to balance the thirst for information that occupied the minds of so many. In that place where everything was known, people could not fail to learn of the less kindly aspects of the universe, and some found them to their taste. Other books were placed upon the shelves. Books detailing the death-god and his ways, speaking of the goodness of slaughter and the wonder of pain, urging sacrifice in blood as a more powerful alternative to the rice-balls and sake that pleased the other gods. Books that spoke of the wandering spirits, those who had escaped the confines of the Distortion World, twisted by its constant bombardment of agony-nothingness, becoming bitter, evil, barely recognisable as human or Pokémon, warped in form and mind. Books that told of other, less definable beings, beings that (the books whispered) were born of neither the Original One nor Mew Life-Giver, but slipped through cracks in the universe from outside. More readers, skimming through the piles of scrolls, discovered these ideas, and their numbers grew. Eventually, they left the library and their plans departed the realm of theory, and they formed groups of their own as counterparts to the clusters of scholars that sat round teahouse tables to discuss verse and drama, meeting at midnight in darkened rooms to draw symbols on the floor and chant long spells, often with a knife and something squirming wrapped tightly in rope to complete the ceremony. They lusted for the dark gods, a great void gaping empty within them; the vague composition of nightmare and fear sensed their hollowness, and flowed to fill it.

Utterly alien, utterly powerful, utterly evil; he was the most perfect deity the horde of cultists could have wished for. He hid silent in the shadows of the murky rooms where the rituals were held for a brief while, then, as the blade fell, he revealed himself in a burst of blackness, insubstantial sable tentacles curling, twining and reshaping themselves like great ever-changing wings spread wide above the bowing assembly of devotees. He remained visible for only a couple of heartbeats, then vanished, exploding into shreds of smoke, but it was more than long enough to sear his impression permanently into their imaginations.

From that night on, their disconnected jumble of ideas had a focus, and they blossomed. He was named Darkrai –for Arceus had not given him a name, knowing well the potency a single identity could bring to the assortment of nightmarish visions that he had been at the dawn of the universe- and venerated like no god had ever been in Sinnoh. Statues of an amorphous figure with a single eye began to appear on the street corners of Canalave, clutching within an outstretched clawed hand a bundle tied with a tangle of chains (the souls that it had already claimed, so the _Book of Darkrai _said), whilst the other was turned upwards, talons spread wide to welcome new spirits. His name was carved large into the stone of boulders adorning the shore, scrawled across the walls of buildings, scratched in tortured characters into the bark of the fragrant pines that surrounded Canalave on three sides. And the god himself did not shirk his share of the work in spreading his fame. After dusk, when the inhabitants lay asleep, he would emerge and stalk the streets, the constant current of fear that flowed from his flesh soaking through the walls of houses, percolating through the blinds, trickling across pillows and seeping into defenceless minds. During the day, they could navigate the canals and squares as normal, visit the market, greet friends, talk of how children were progressing in their studies, do as they pleased under the sun-touched skies of western Sinnoh. But at night, they were alone, tripping half-blind through tight corridors of sharp rock, the cold stone their numbed fingers touched wet with unidentifiable sluggishly flowing liquid, desperately shouting at the high voices that shrieked in their ears, as the endless rain dripped down and the dark god watched.

Sleep fled from the streets of Canalave. No human or Pokémon could be expected to endure the nightly torment and simply lie down and await its coming when at dusk. The devotees of Darkrai professed to welcome the dreams, to prize them as the pure and unadulterated word of the Master of Nightmares, but even they cried out in their slumber as the monsters tore at them and could not return to sleep when they awoke covered in sweat, but remained upright at the edge of the futon, suddenly incapable of extinguishing the lantern beside them or peeping through the window to where they knew the one they venerated would be hovering, looking up at them with a single emotionless eye. Their words were of gratitude and worship, but their hoarse voices and hollow faces betrayed the truth. All suffered equally together. The inhabitants began staying awake later into the night, playing _go _and conversing in an attempt to stave off the arrival of the nightmares, but it was in vain. Darkrai could remain ever active, whilst ordinary people inevitably succumbed; no-one could remain awake endlessly. Sooner or later, the dark and the solitude and the fear would come over them.

Misery spread. In the earlier days, those in the city would at least have the sparkling water of the canals and the company of others to console them once the nightmare had concluded. After a few months, when someone stepped into the street in the morning they would see only crowds of shambling, haggard, eerily quiet figures, barely able to walk a few paces to find food. The good dreams that their goddess normally sent were obliterated, the sheer proximity of Darkrai meaning that the nightmares easily dominated them. The feathers on the shore were steadily thinner, more ragged, more discoloured. Even desperation could no longer drive them to the moon temple to offer their prayers – as soon as the thought of the journey through the now-filthy alleys to the deserted square where the building loomed entered their heads, cold, suffocating feelings choked them and they could do no more than turn away from the path leading in its direction and collapse. The followers of Darkrai, increasingly afraid, jumped at the vague possibility that there might be a solution, however far-fetched, and claimed that it was the continued presence of the temple, emblematic of the false goddess Cresselia, that was aggravating the thing that walked, and that once it was destroyed the nightmares would leave them. They crowded in their hundreds towards the temple, bearing torches and weapons. Fire crawled up strong pine foundations, blades slid through silk hangings and ink paintings, lucky priestesses had the feathers torn from their obi and their long hair or fur –both humans and Pokémon served in the temple, and both took an identical vow never to cut their hair- ripped out and thrown to crackle into powder in the flame, unlucky priestesses joined the fire whole. The cream marble, mined over the course of many years from Sinnoh's mountains and shaped into neat blocks by thousands of faithful worshippers, was less willing to burn, and was merely left as a soot-darkened heap and a handful of crumbling walls, as charred fragments of the wood from the statues of Cresselia which had risen from the roof rained down around them, pattering on the hot stone, mingling with the metallic tears of molten gold splashing down from the temple's heights. The temple was not destroyed completely, but reduced to a blackened hulk; even the most fervent of Darkrai's followers found the place eerie, and refrained from razing it to the ground, instead leaving it to rot. Occasionally, a lone mischief-maker would sneak in, wander round the deserted interior, toy with the few objects that survived the blaze, write in slogans praising Darkrai on what remained of the walls, but they were driven away before long by the cold and the emptiness and the all-permeating silence. And still the nightmares preyed.

There was nothing more they could do. Canalave, city of knowledge, where facts scattered in the air like early spring cherry blossom and books were devoured faster than meals, could not fathom how to escape its nightmare. Libraries were trawled, sleepless nights were spent buried in ancient texts; nothing was found. Old scholars searched their memories, and found them empty. Even the Guardian of Wisdom herself had long left the canals, extremely unwilling to do so, but driven by necessity. She was not afraid of Darkrai as an all-powerful otherworldly being, fully aware of his origins and the extent of his abilities, but, as a being of the mind, was the most susceptible to the endless parade of horror he subjected them to nightly, and knew, though it pained her, that his type meant that challenging him in open combat would be unwise. Besides, she had other matters to attend to; Cresselia, trapped on her island, reduced to paling flesh and thinning, ragged feathers hanging from her collapsed, skeletal frame, was fading fast, and, if attacked, could easily perish. Uxie was one of the few remaining who would choose to stay within a few leagues of Canalave, and, faced with the impossible odds, there was little she could do but remain with the ailing goddess and defend her from attack. Sighing, she watched the lights slowly winking out across the cold murky sea, and turned back to the weakening, heaving near-corpse beside her, wondering how long their food would last.

Outside, people mused about what might have become of Canalave, but would have never gone close. Within a mile, the nightmare-being's influence began to waft through the air, making even the strongest barely capable of walking forward. It was isolated, cut off completely from the rest of the region. All the assistance the remainder of Sinnoh could offer was pity.

Except for one, the Flower-Bearer, Shaymin of the paradise in the north. Ordinarily, he remained firmly within the shores of the island that formed his garden, tending the ten thousand varieties of rare plant that he kept there and seeing no other living being, for only the bravest hero could summon forth the sea-spanning bridge garlanded with Gracidea that was, for all except the legendaries and the occasional flying messenger, the only way to reach the Flower Paradise. Yet even he, far away from the misery, could sense the undercurrent of anguish that lay heavy on the air, soaked into the soil, imbued water with a bitter taste. It reached him, and he felt sorrowful for those that were suffering from it. He decided to venture out and investigate; leaving his nursery behind, carrying with him only the small bag which held his collection of seeds, he transformed into the shape he used for flight, and leapt into the air, a small speck of grass-green vanishing rapidly into the turquoise-bordered-by-iron sky.

For an hour or so he flew on at blinding speed, flowing through clouds and currents of air, fur beaded with tiny ice crystals, blinking to clear the mist from his vision. His faint sense of unease guided him in towards the west, pulling him onwards yet screaming at him to turn back. He dipped through the layers of cloud, trailing water droplets, and spiralled down in the direction of the burnt-looking expanse of settlement, threaded through with mud-coloured lengths of canal like choked capillaries running through decaying tissue.

The raw fear hit him, pushing the air from his lungs, forcing his lids back into his skull and pressing burning tears from each corner. Dismayed, the Flower-Bearer tried to urge his shaking form, suddenly incapable of movement, further down, but the horror was too great, the primal terror flooding his mind too bloody and immediate, and, thrashing in his distress, all he could do was turn and flee. As he did so, the slender knot of brambles that normally held his bundle of seeds closed unravelled, and the square of silk opened, strewing the heap of lovingly collected seeds, gathered from all regions of the planet and stored carefully for hundreds of years, over the desolate city.

They fell, striking the ground hard. Many cracked, many dropped into the icy water of the canals, and many, many more were overpowered by the hatred and coldness and dark feeling emanating from the thing that walked. Yet, in that collection of miraculous plants, there were some that were hardy enough to resist Darkrai's influence, and they grew fast. The mud that slimed most of the city streets provided nutrition, the frequent rain showers gave water, and most of the inhabitants were far too busy struggling through the swamp of pain that surrounded them to notice a handful of weeds sprouting at the dank edges of the alleys. The plants clambered upwards. They survived the thick malice that hung heavy in the streets, refusing to wilt and die, and so it made them stronger. Something of the nightmares had seeped into their flesh, and the plants had resisted, forcing out the parasite, somehow immune to its emotionless strangling, and grown in a new way, a way that even the nature-loving god who had scooped them from the ground in faraway lands could never have foreseen. Leaves unfurled, diminutive flowers budded, seeds were released and clung to the fur or clothes of passing Pokémon and people, being distributed round the city. More glimpses of green became visible in the half-lit maze of streets. And they continued growing all the while, reaching higher towards the obscured sky, and something began to expand in their centres.

A month passed, and it grew close to the full moon. Most of the inhabitants of Canalave were unaware of this fact, gazing up at the heavens being to them a task as arduous as slaying a Garchomp. But the plants felt it, and their leaves trembled, the round pods amidst their tendrils bulging. The thing continued to walk.

And then, on the night of the full moon, slivers of frost-white light piercing down through leaden watercolours of cloud, as Darkrai took to the streets again and the nightmares began at their appointed time, rustlings began throughout Canalave. In the shadowy street corners, small hemispheres stirred. Steadily, gently, viridian sepals uncurled, tightly furled balls of damp ivory were revealed. Crushed pale petals moved apart, straightened, bowed back. Clusters of cream blooms were appearing on the slender emerald stems of the flowers sprouting across the city.

Motes of gold danced above them, moving, dipping, floating, eddying on the night breeze. Slowly, they turned, and flowed upwards in a shining amber current, snaking their way through the streets, trickling this way and that, ribboning light through the shadowed city. The wind caught them, pushing constellations of bright flecks away from the main sea, sending them jewel-glittering through windows, doors, gaps in the fabric of houses. They drifted past screens and into bedrooms where the inhabitants of the house lay trembling, caught in the tight and invisible bonds of nightmare. They floated down towards the crumpled futons, settled on tangled covers and flushed skin. Every panicked gasp drew them closer to the sleepers, and finally they were inhaled, pulled into the rapidly breathing mouths of the trapped. They tickled into their throats and found their way upwards. Suffocated gasping slowed, blood hammered less rapidly round veins.

Within the cold and the solitude and the terror, the nightmare-stricken halted and looked about them, hearing the screams cease and feeling the air warm. Skin-ripping crags of rock vanished; skeletal trees were leafed. Dead rock was blanketed by fertile soil, then springy grass, then tall pines stretching towards a sky in which the sun was emerging. Their tormentors, enemies, desperate fears, vanished, or evaporated into showers of Beautifly, or became schools of Finneon swimming through suddenly-clear lakes. The nightmare-stricken ran to each other, embracing, talking of the miracle, delighting in the sudden peace.

And the thing that walked was afraid.

Darkrai limped through the alleys, leaning on the filthy walls to support himself. He was surrounded, choked, stumbling through a hazy cloud of blinding, prickling specks. He had never experienced anything akin to it; powerless, weakened, with a wrenching sensation of unbearable brightness and sickly-sweetness and burning heat, and he felt the fear that had left him untouched but devastated thousands of others for so long finally turn its greedy head and sink its salivating mouth deep into him, and cried aloud, and his mind buzzed and shook with dancing demons and vengeful legendaries and spirits with long necks and sharp teeth and the Original One in Her most furious incarnation with each of Her thousand arms gripping a great sword and hundreds, thousands, millions of sickening, sickening joyous people crowding through his head like the shogun's army forcing itself through a pinprick, and he fled, the full autumn moon burning his back.

Uxie glanced up from where she knelt at Cresselia's side, and her mind saw unidentifiable dots of saffron, glimmering refracted through the fluid glass of the sea water. She started, and floated down to the beach. It was undeniable; the navy fabric of the ocean was shot through with thin gold stitching. Instantly, she understood, and hurried to fetch a vessel to keep it in. After dosing Cresselia with a mouthful of the water and shining pollen mixed, the moon-goddess smiled weakly, and heaved herself upright for the first time in weeks to gaze upon the pale globe high above them. After another day, and several more doses of the medicine, the two flew back to Canalave over the waves to a welcome made no less warm by the pallid faces of those welcoming them.

The temple of Cresselia was rebuilt, towering even higher and even more splendid than the previous one; the _Book of Darkrai _and all the other writings that had come out of the time of nightmares were removed from the public shelves, and stored in a secret underground room to which only the chief librarian had the key. Yet they could still not purge the smell of ash that hung round the temple on nights of the new moon, or prevent nightmares from affecting them completely – though Darkrai had run, and had ensconced himself on an island to the north where he could recover, he desired to return; for the first time, a place had stirred emotion within him, the happiness that had broken his mind having left a gap through which feeling, raw and agonising and addictive, could creep. He was wary of the full moon, associating it with his fall, but there were many nights with no moon, and on those nights he could fly to Canalave and walk the streets unimpeded, and nightmare returned to that place again. Although those nights were designated by the people of Canalave for remaining awake with family and friends, joking, again concentrating on moving their counters against a clever opponent, reading, playing music, they were still afraid, and the following morning the shrines to Cresselia were heaped higher than ever with offerings.

And if you choose to walk the streets of Canalave, you may find the Order of Darkrai less dead than you had presumed. Though many of the first generation gave up their following, memories of the horror dulled, and some continued to meet in cramped rooms and paint the symbols on the floor. Aware that the rest of Sinnoh knew of their predecessors' actions, they were careful to be subtle. Some dismiss this as a rumour, a mere story to frighten children away from playing in the murky docklands area. But others disagree; they claim that one has only to obtain a certain amulet, and walk down to the only tea-house that remained shut after the crisis ended, and there they will be taken by the high priest to meet with the thing that walks. One thing remains certain; the door of the Yomi-no-Hikari teahouse has remained firmly shut, and that while every dozen years a scholar or adventurer claims to have found a token of entry, neither the amulet or its finder are usually seen again.

* * *

**Sorry it's so late!** **Really sorry!**

**Thanks to IrisCrystal17 and IAteYourCookie for favouriting, Sethera and D T wheelz for alerting, and Sethera again for reviewing and many lulz. And thank you to everyone reading! **

**I'm thinking about Victini next (I caught a bit of White: Victini and Zekrom, and the Sword of the Vale stuff looks interesting to play with, though maybe tricky to work in with the game origin story) . That said, requests are open, so feel free to ask if you wish. See you next time!**

**-Arcanus**


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